HC 

105.7 

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LIBRARY 


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I 


UNIVERSl-K  OP 
CALIFORNIA 
SAN  DIE»0 


THE  C0MPLAIN1L0E ,|,4]^Q^ ^ 

CR  '-.,<.,cH6ilY  OF  CALIFORNIA,  SAN  DfEGU 

LA  JOLLA,  CALIFORNIA 

THE  FORCES  OF  NATURE  AS  AFFECTING  SOCIETY. 


AllGUMENT 


BEFOIMO    Till': 


CONURESSIONAL  COMxMITTEE, 

A.  S.  HEWITT,  Chairman, 


CHARLES  CAPiLETON  COFFIN, 


January    16,    1879. 


(FRO  M    T  H  K    C'  O  M:  ]\^  I T  r  E  E  '  S    REPORT.) 


WASHINGTOIS': 

aOVERNMENT     PRINTINa     OFFICE. 
1879. 


/^ 


I  ^ 


c  t 


VIEWS  OF  MR.  CHARLES  C.  COFFIN,  OF  BOSTON. 


Washington,  D.  C,  January  Ifi,  1879. 

Mr.  Charles  C.  CofMn,  of  Bo.stoi),  Ma-ss.,  appeared  before  the  committee,  and,  in 
reply  to  prelimiuary  (juestious  by  the  chairman,  stated  that  he  was  an  American 
citizen  ;  that  he  had  been  connected  with  the  pre.ss  for  a  good  many  years  ;  that  as  a 
matter  of  bnsiness  he  had  been  making  a  study  of  the  labor  question,  and  was  pre- 
pared to  give  the  committee  some  results  which  he  had  arrived  at.  He  said  that  he  had 
no  speculations  or  theories  to  otter.  The  committee  was  asked  to  legislate  in  behalf  of 
labor.  Labor-leagues,  trades-unions,  socialistic  agitators,  and  political  speakers 
asserted,  first,  that  labor  alone  creates  wealth,  and,  secoiul,  that  capital  is  antagonistic 
to  labor.  Last  Sunday  he  had  been  in  a  church  in  Washington,  and  the  minister,  in 
the  course  of  his  sermon,  gave  utterance  to  the  sentiment,  "Labor  and  Capital  stand 
glaring  at  each  other  ready  for  a  spring,"  Other  sentiments  were  that  labor  was  op- 
pressed ;  that  machinery  throws  men  out  of  employment ;  that  the  rich  are  growing 
richer  and  the  poor  poorer  ;  and  that  the  condition  of  labor  to-day  is  worse  than  in  the 
past.     Mr.  Coffin  proceeded  as  follows  : 

In  considering  these  points  I  propose  to  go  from  cause  to  effect,  in  order  to  ascertain 
how  much  ground  there  may  be  for  these  assertions.  I  shall  endeavor  to  show  the  so- 
cial condition  of  society,  past  and  present ;  the  earnings  and  havings  of  labor  and 
capital,  past  and  present ;  what  labor  and  capital  together  have  accomplished  ;  and 
some  of  the  causes  that  have  produced  the  present  discontent,  and  will  make  some  sug- 
gestions in  regard  to  the  future  of  labor. 

These  complaints  are  not  new.  One  hundred  and  ninety-nine  years  ago  John  Basset 
made  a  speech  in  Parliament  complaining  that  the  English  manufacturer  could  not 
compete  with  the  Hindoo  weaver,  who  was  content  with  a  small  copper  coin  per  day, 
whereas  the  English  weaver  demanded  from  sixpence  to  a  shilling  a  day.  One  hun- 
dred and  ninety-three  years  ago  the  justices  of  Warwickshire,  England,  fixed  the  prices 
of  agricultural  labor,  making  wages  from  March  to  September  four  shillings  per  week, 
and  from  September  to  March  three  shillings  and  sixpence  per  week,  without  board. 
One  hundred  and  seventy-two  years  ago  Gregory  King,  in  a  book  entitled  "Natural  and 
Political  Conclusions,"  states  that  there  were  880,000  families  in  the  kingdom ;  that 
half  of  them  were  able  to  eat  meat  twice  a  week  (including  the  gentry  and  aristoc- 
racy), and  that  the  other  half  ate  it  but  a  few  times  during  the  year.  He  also  stated 
that  the  population  of  the  kingdom  was  5,.500,000,  and  that  the  wheat  raised  was^less 
than  500,000  bushels.  This  would  give  but  a  pint  and  a  half  of  flour  in  the  year  to 
every  man,  woman,  and  child  in  the  United  Kingdom;  that  their  living  consisted  of 
rye,  barley,  oats,  and  pease.  Bear  in  mind  that  at  that  time  Boston,  Albany,  New  York, 
Philadelphia,  and  Charleston  were  considerable  towns. 

Since  18i{0,  within  half  a  centnry,  there  has  been  the  coming  in  of  a  new  civilization. 
I  propose  to  take  a  glance  at  the  conditions  of  life  and  society  as  they  were  in  my  boy- 
hood, in  the  year  18iW,  which  I  can  remember  distinctly,  in  contrast  with  those  of  the 
present  time,  in  order  to  see  whether  these  demands  of  labor  to- day  are  reasonable  or 
nnreasonable. 

The  stage-coach  then  made  75  miles  a  day.  To-day  you  are  whirled  40  miles  an 
hour,  and  across  the  continent  in  a  week.  The  mail  then  went  75  miles  a  day.  Now 
you  talk  with  your  friend  in  Chicago  and  hear  the  tones  of  his  voice  through  the  tele- 
])hone.  The  broker  in  Wall  street,  the  pork-packer  in  Chicago,  the  cotton-broker  in 
New  Orleans  manage  their  business  by  hourly  reports  from  every  commercial  center  in 
the  world.  In  those  days  the  country  houses  as  a  rule  were  unclapboarded,  unpainted, 
unplastered,  with  a  yawning  chasm  in  the  chimney  for  a  fire-place,  and  it  was  a  com- 
mon remark  that  in  winter  jteople  froze  one  side  while  they  roasted  the  other. 

To-day  a  majority  of  country  houses  are  clapboarded,  painted,  blinded,  are  neat 
and  comfortable.  In  the  country  they  have  the  base-burning  stove,  and  in  the  city 
the  furnace  and  steam-heater.    The  furniture  of  those  days  consisted  of  some  common 


chairs  and  a  lnil.stead  made  liy  a  uoiiiiiioii  carpfiitcr.  Carpt-ts  tliere  were  none.  The 
table  ^^aiiiitme  coiiHisted  of  pewter  plates  and  iron  hjioous,  knives,  and  forks.  The 
kitchen  ware  consisted  of  a  iJnfch  oven,  a  frying-pan,  a  skillet,  and  a  dinner-pot. 
To-day  there  is  no  end  of  honseliold  furniture.  In  those  days  the  indnstries  were  car- 
ried on  in  the  liousehold.  There  was  no  industry  for  females  except  that  of  the  spiu- 
ninji-wheel  and  the  hioin.  I  had  tlie  curiosity  to  ascertain  Just  what  a  spinner  coiiUl 
do  in  a  day,  and  I  sent  np  t(»  New  Hampshire  to  a  sister  of  mine  who  used  to  Ije  an  ex- 
pert sjiinner,  knowiiij^  that  she  had  a  si>innin}i-wheel  and  some  rolls,  and  I  had  the 
exact  measurement  of  the  distance  which  she  walked  in  spinniiifj  with  a  larj^e  wheel. 
A  day's  work  of  ten  hours  would  enable  her  to  sjtin  15.  8  miles  of  thread,  and  she  would 
walk  nearly  •")  miles  in  doing  it.  Now.  in  one  of  our  manufactories  you  will  see  a  girl 
of  fifteen  minding  a  machine  that  spins  "2,100  miles  of  thread  in  a  day — a  thread 
that  would  reach  from  Washington  to  California.  In  those  days  the  woman  who  com- 
menct<l  with  tlie  spinning-wheel  and  loom  to  get  her  litting-out  when  about  to  get 
uutrricd  would  have  to  spend  many  weary  days  in  uuiking  her  shirets.  To-day  she 
obtains  them  at  seventy-tive  cents  apiece.  In  those  days  there  was  no  industry  that 
females  could  turn  their  hands  to  excejit  the  spinning-wheel  and  the  loom.  They 
were  utterly  cut  ott'  from  doiug  anything  else  except  working  in  the  Held  with  the 
men. 

The  CiiAiKMAX.  It  is  alleged  that  that  was  a  much  better  condition  for  women  than 
the  existing  one;  that  they  were  then  iii  the  household,  in  the  family,  in  the  relatiouH 
for  which  nature  desigued  them,  instead  of  being  as  now  in  factories  and  occupations 
which  sever  them  from  the  domestic  circle.  The  proposition  is  laid  down  that  there 
is  in  the  present  position  of  women  a  degradation  from  the  better  state  of  things  that 
existed  at  that  time.     What  answer  have  you  to  make  to  that  .' 

Mr.  Coffin.  That  is  not  my  opinion.  Those  women  who  labor  in  factories  with 
whom  1  have  come  in  contact  (those  of  American  birth,  certainly)  have  as  much  dig- 
nity an<l  modesty  and  refinement  as  those  whom  we  tiud  at  the  farm  to-day. 

The  Chaikmax.  But  do  they  come  as  readily  into  the  proper  functions  of  woman  ? 
Do  they  marry  and  settle  down  and  have  homes  of  their  own.  as  women  did  have  a 
century  ago  when  the  farmers  were  living  in  tlie  way  you  describe,  and  when  pretty 
much  every  girl  was  Diarried  in  the  course  of  time,  and  had  a  home  of  her  own  ? 

Mr.  Coffin.  The  trouble  in  Massachusetts  is  that  we  have  vastlj-  luore  women  than 
men  ;  but  that  arises  from  the  fact  that  emigration  has  taken  oft  the  men. 

Ml".  Thompson.  That  disproportion  is  counterbalanced  by  a  preponderance  of  men 
in  some  other  parts  of  the  country. 

Mr.  Coffin.  Yes;  but  they  do  not  happen  to  come  together  in  marriage. 

The  Chairman.  Now  we  are  asked  to  transfer  the  surplus  of  labor  to  the  land — to 
undertake  that  as  a  national  duty.  Would  it  not  be  equally  a  national  duty  to  trans- 
fer the  unmarried  women  to  the  men  ? 

Mr.  Coffin.  Quite  as  much  as  to  do  the  other.  A  half  century  ago  my  father's 
house  was  lighted  with  a  tallow  candle  or  by  a  pitch-knot  on  the  hearth.  To-day  you 
have  the  softer  radiance  of  the  kerosene.  In  those  days,  if  the  tire  went  out,  you  had 
only  Hint  and  steel  with  which  to  relight  it,  while  to-day  every  man  carries  a  light  in 
his  pocket.  In  those  days  a  man  who  loved  tobacco,  if  he  was  away  from  a  household, 
could  not  indulge  in  the  luxury  of  a  pipe  unless  he  had  a  flint  and  steel  with  him.  In 
those  days  we  measured  the  hours  by  the  shadow  of  the  sun  on  the  Hoor.  Clocks  were  very 
rare.  Costing  from  $40  to  $60,  few  could  aft'ord  them.  To-day  who  does  not  carry  a  watch  ? 
And  as  to  clocks,  you  can  buy  them  by  the  cart-load  that  cost  to  manufacture  sixty-two 
cents  apiece.  Almost  the  only  books  in  the  household,  in  those  days,  were  the  liible, 
the-almauac,  and  some  text  and  school  books,  with  a  W^alker's  Dictionary,  about  4  by  4 
inches  square  and  ^  inch  thick.  I  had  the  curiosity  to  ascertain  from  the  printers  of 
the  two  unabridged  dictionaries  the  number  of  those  dictionaries  printed,  and  while 
they  did  uot  wish  to  give  exact  numbers,  they  gave  approximately  the  number,  between 
600,000  and  700,000,  which  would  give  one  to  every  sixty  or  seventy  inhabitants  of  this 
country.  In  the  libraries  that  contain  over  10,000  volumes  (college  and  public  libraries ) 
there  are  10,650,000  volumes.  It  is  estimated  that,  including  the  books  in  the  Sunday- 
school  libraries,  there  are  at  least  20,000,000  volumes,  in  the  libraries  of  this  country 
which  have  been  brought  in  mainly  since  1830.  In  those  days  we  could  only  obtain 
clothes  by  the  long  j^rocess  of  the  manufacture  of  the  cloth  at  home,  the  tailoress 
coming  around  to  make  the  clothes.  Now  we  can  obtain  ready-made  clothing,  neatly 
titting,'better  than  the  best  that  could  have  been  obtained  in  those  days,  by  stepping 
into  any  clothing  shop. 

This  change  of  social  condition  has  been  brought  about  by  the  improvements  in  man- 
ufacturing. The  first  power-loom  was  set  up  in  Waltham,  Mass.,  in  1816,  and  by  18:i0 
the  spinning-wheel  had  pretty  nearly  disappeared.  In  1830,  the  female  help  employed 
in  my  father's  house  received  .50  cents  a  week.  The  girls  went  to  Lowell,  Mass.,  where 
they  received  from  $3  to  |4  a  week,  or  $2  above  board.  The  wages  of  agricultural 
laborers  in  1830  were  from  $8  to  $10  a  month,  with  their  board.  In  1845  I  worked  on  a 
farm  in  New  Hampshire,  receiving  $10  a  mouth  and  board,  and  on  that  same  farm  last 


5 

year  the  hand  received  flS  a  month  and  board  for  doing  not  the  same  work  ;  he  rode 
.tlie  mowinjr-machine,  wliereas  I  swnn}>;  the  scythe. 

The  Oir.\ii;.MA\.  In  rej^ard  to  the  i)nrchasinir  power  of  the  $10  and  the  $18;  which 
woukl  be  able  to  l)ny  the  most  su[»plies,  tlie  $10  then  or  the  sir*  now  ? 

Mr.  Coi'KiN'.  1  will  show  you  that  before  I  get  throngh.  Now,  did  the  introduction 
of  machinery  throw  men  out  of  employment?  Let  us  see  what  was  called  for  to  build 
manufactories,  and  who  were  set  to  work.  .First  came  the  inventor,  then  the  eapitalist, 
who  empU)yed  brick-makers,  stone-quarriers,  masons,  liod-carriers,  wood  choppers,  lum- 
bermen, blacksmiths,  millwrights,  carpenters,  joiners,  miners,  puddlers,  coal-heavers, 
machinists,  brass-founders,  coopers,  tool-makers,  the  whole  fraternity  of  trades,  to  buihl 
the  manufactory.  Tlien  when  the  manufactory  was  erected,  the  operatives  were  called 
from  the  country.  Girls  in  my  fathers  kitchen  who  had  been  receiving  50  cents  a  week 
went  to  the  manufactory  and  there  received  from  $2  to  $:?  a  week.  Men  were  called  to 
be  overseers,  superintendi^nts,  architects,  clerks,  accountants,  machinists,  inventors, 
experimenters,  chemists,  and  dyers.  What  were  they  doing  before  they  wc^re  thus  called 
forth  by  capital  ?  They  were  on  farms,  they  were  in  coopers'  shops,  blacksmiths'  shops, 
carpenters'  shops ;  they  were  behind  counters,  they  were  doing  ordinary  work,  but  they 
were  competent  to  do  something  higher  and  better,  and  to  receive  higher  pay.  Thus 
we  see  first,  invention  ;  second,  capital  setting  labor  at  work;  third,  labor  receiving 
higher  wages  and  advancing  to  a  higher  plane  of  life ;  and  fourth,  skill  commanding  a 
premium. 

From  1820  to  1830  may  be  taken  as  the  beginning  of  uianufactnres.  In  1870  the 
factory  system  had  develojied  so  that  by  the  census  it  appears  that  there  were  employed 
in  all  the  manufacturing  industries  of  the  country  ^jO.^^,!)!):?  persons;  the  capital 
invested  was  $'2,118,'208,ono,  and  the  wages  paid  per  annum  amounted  to  $775,587,000. 
The  wages  of  all  farm  laborers  in  this  country,  by  the  census  of  1870,  aggregated 
$310,286,000 — less  than  half  the  amount  of  wages  paid  to  laborers  in  the  other  gainful 
occupations.  The  increase  in  manufactured  products  has  been  altogether  dispropor- 
tionate to  the  growth  of  jwpulation.  From  1850  to  1870  the  population  increased  65 
percent.,  while  manufacturing  increased  322  per  cent.  It  is  ynoper  to  say  that  a  part 
of  this  increase  may  have  been  due  to  an  increase  of  values,  and  it  is  fair  to  say  that 
manufacturing  increased  three  times  faster  than  population. 

The  Chairman.  I  do  not  know  how  to  arrive  at  that.  Of  course,  values  fluctuated 
very  much  from  year  to  year.  Take  the  iron  business,  for  instance,  and  it  is  well 
known  that  there  has  been  a  reduction  year  by  year,  and  so  with  many  other  branches 
of  business. 

Mr.  CoFi  IN.  I  make  the  suggestion  on  the  authority  of  the  notes  to  the  last  census. 
I  think  there  has  been  so  much  cheapening  in  the  cost  of  manufacture  as  to  make  the 
rise  in  product  much  less  than  is  generally  supposed  between  1860  and  1870. 

The  Chairman.  I  should  be  very  doubtful  about  it,  because  you  simply  take  the 
year  1870 ;  that  year  was  before  very  high  prices.  I  should  think  it  was  an  average 
year. 

Mr.  Coffin.  Perhaps  I  am  wrong  in  my  statement. 

The  Chairman.  I  doubt  whether  it  is  necessary  that  you  should  make  any  rpialifi- 
cation  of  that  kind. 

Mr.  Coffin.  In  1832  there  were  1,200,000  cotton  spindles  in  this  country  ;  in  1845 
there  were  2,500,000;  in  1875,  9,-500,000;  and  in  187H  there  were  11,000,000.  In  Great 
Britain  there  were,  in  1832, 9,000,000 ;  in  1845, 17,500,000  ;  in  1875,  37,-500,000.  In  Eu- 
rope, outside  of  Great  Britain,  there  were,  in  1832,2,800,000;  in  1845,7,500,000;  and 
in  1875,  19,500,000.  The  total  for  the  world  in  1879  is  about  71,000,000  spindles.  The 
result  has  been,  that  while  between  1830  and  1875  our  population  increased  between 
threefold  and  fourfold,  the  amount  of  cotton  manufactured  and  used  increased  thirteen- 
fold,  because  each  person  uses  three  to  four  times  as  much  as  they  used  to. 

Coincident  with  this  development  came  railroad  construction.  In  1830  we  had  29 
miles  of  railroad  ;  in  1878  we  had  81,000  miles.  There  was  not  labor  enough  In  this 
country  to  carry  on  this  construction,  and  we  sent  abroad  for  it.  And  hei"e  let  me  call 
the  attention  of  the  committee  to  the  remarkable  correlation  between  emigration  and 
the  development  of  these  industries.  We  had  no  statistics  of  emigration  ])rior  to 
1820,  and  it  is  stated  that  the  emigrants  in  one  year  did  not  then  reach  8,000.  Between 
1820  and  1830  there  was  a  considerable  increase  of  emigration.  In  1830  the  number 
of  emigrants  was  23,322.  I  have  here  a  table  showing  the  statistics  of  emigration  in 
copncction  with  the  number  of  miles  of  railroad  in  oi)eration. 


The  table  is  as  follows : 


Year. 


1830 
1831 
1832 
1833 

18:m 

1835 
1836 
1837 

1838 
1839 
1840 
1841 
1842 
1843 
1844 
1845 
1846 
1847 
1848 
1849 
1850 
1851 
1852 
1853 
1854 
1855 
1856 
1857 
1858 
1859 
1860 
1861 
1862 
1863 
1864 
1865 
1866 
1867 
1868 
1869 
1870 
1871 


Emigrants. 


Miles  of  rail- 
roads  i  u 
operation. 


23, 322 

23 

22,  633 

95 

60, 482 

229 

.58,  640 

380 

65, 3a5 

633 

45, 374 

1,098 

76, 242 

1,273 

79, 340 

1,497 

38, 914 

1,913 

68, 069 

2,  .302 

84, 066 

2,  818 

80, 289 

3,  .535 

104, 565 

4,  026 

52, 496 

4,  185 

78, 615 

4,  377 

114,371 

4, 633 

1.54,416 

4, 930 

234,968 

5,  598 

266, 527 

5,996 

297,  024 

7, 365 

369, 980 

9,021 

379, 466 

10, 982 

371,603 

12, 908 

368, 645 

1.5,360 

427,  833 

16, 728 

200, 887 

18,  374 

200, 436 

22,  016 

251,316 

24, 503 

123, 126 

26,968 

121,282 

28, 789 

153, 640 

30,  635 

91,920 

31,286 

91,  987 

32, 120 

176, 282 

33, 170 

193.416 

33,  908 

249. 061 

35, 085 

318,  494 

36, 827 

298, 358 

39, 276 

297, 215 

42, 2.55 

395, 922 

47,208 

378, 796 

52, 898 

367, 789 

()0,  .568 

Total ..,     9,000,000 


It  will  be  seen  that  we  reached  the  maximum  of  emigration  in  18.54,  when  the  num- 
ber of  emigrants  was  427,833,  and  at  that  time  we  had  in  operation  16,728  miles  of 
railroad.  Then  we  began  to  decrease  in  emigration,  the  next  two  years  being  only 
200,887  and  200,436.  Then  in  18.57  it  amounted  to  251,316.  But  the  construction  of 
railroads  was  going  on  rapidly  during  those  years,  running  down  to  1861,  when  the 
number  of  miles  in  operation  was  31,286.  From  1862  emigration  began  again  to  in- 
crease, until  it  again  reached  its  maximum  in  1869,  when  it  was  395,922,  and  then  we 
had  47,208  miles  of  railroad  in  operation.  In  1871  the  emigration  was  3o7,789  and  the 
number  of  miles  of  railroad  in  operation  60,568.  The  total  number  of  emigrants  that 
arrived  in  this  country  from  lb2U  has  been  a  little  over  9,000,00U. 

The  C'hairmax.  Your  proposition  is  that  the  railroads  of  this  country  were  princi- 
pally built  by  foreign  labor,  and  your  reason  for  that  is  that  American  labor  could 
find  something  better  to  do  ? 

Mr.  CoFi  IX.  Yes;  that  is  the  proposition.  We  wanted  this  foreign  labor.  American 
labor  went  in  the  first  place  into  the  manufactories,  but  there  again  foreign  labor  has 
superseded  it  in  those  branches  requiring  the  least  skill  and  intelligence. 


The  Chairman.  Are  you  aware  that  the  Soutlieru  railroails  have  beeu  chielly  built 
by  slave  labor  ? 

Mr.  Coffin.  Yes,  sir. 

The  Chairman.  Then  your  statement  will  be  limited  in  the  main  to  Northern  rail- 
roads ? 

Mr.  Coffin.  Yes,  sir ;  but  there  were  comparatively  few  railroads  in  the  South  and 
no  manufacturing  industries  to  call  for  labor.  In  order  to  induce  this  foreign  labor  to 
come  here,  we  advertised  our  cheap  lands,  which  probably  were  an  attraction,  aside  from 
the  high  wages  paid  for  labor;  we  advertised  our  high  wages;  we  advertised  our  polit- 
ical institutions  ;  we  advertised  our  citizenship  ;  we  advertised  our  freedom.  The  rail- 
toad  companies  sent  agents  all  over  Europe  and  established  emigration  agencies.  While 
this  great  development  is  going  on  here,  a  similar  development  was  going  on  in  Europe. 
Millions  there  were  called  from  the  farm  and  the  shop  to  do  something  higher  and  bet- 
ter, and  to  receive  higher  wages.  Everywhere  there  was  an  advance  of  wages,  and  of 
course  an  increase  of  production.  Let  us  see  how  three  great  nations  have  advanced 
since  1827.  Here  is  a  half  century  of  progress  contained  in  a  few  figures.  I  give  the 
foreign  trade,  the  imports  and  exports,  by  decades,  of  Great  Britain,  France,  and  the 
Ignited  States.  It  is  an  exceedingly  instructive  table,  for  it  enables  us  at  a  glance  to 
see  how  three  great  nations,  by  the  use  of  the  forces  of  nature,  through  discovery  and 
invention,  the  employment  of  machinery  to  do  the  work  of  human  hands,  have  added 
to  the  wealth  of  the  world : 

Ykii-h.  Total  of  imports  and  exjiorts.      Years.  Total  of  imports  anil  exports. 

GREAT  BRITAIN.  FRANCE — Continued. 

l?-27-'37 $4,948,750,000  1  18.57-'67 $9,2fil,200,  000 

1837-'47 (1,771,555,000  I  1867-77 13,  31:'.,  600, 000 

1847-'57 11,065,280,000 

1857-'67 20,379,890,000 

l'^7-'77 28,879,205,000 


FRANCE. 

1827-'37 2,002,400,000 

1837-'47 2,978,400,000 

1847-57 4,601,800,000 


UNITED  STATES 


1827-'37 2,006,218,000 

1837-47 2,285,423,000 

1847-'.57 4,2.5.5,074,000 

1857-'67 7,103,309,000 

1867-'77 11,016,805,000 


The  total  trade  of  Great  Britain  has  within  those  five  decades  increased  six  times, 
that  of  France  six  and  a  half  times,  and  that  of  the  United  States  five  and  a  half  times, 
What  are  the  results  ?  It  has  equalized  the  world's  markets,  given  low  prices  to  the 
consumer,  taken  business  out  of  the  hands  of  the  few  and  given  it  to  the  many,  dis- 
tributed wealth,  elevated  the  masses,  enlarged  the  area  of  civilization,  and  contrib- 
uted to  the  comfort  and  happiness  of  the  human  race. 

The  Chairman.  Do  you  not  omit  to  state  that  pauperism  has  increased  f 

Mr.  Coffin.  I  am  not  sure  about  that.    Is  it  a  fact  ? 

The  Chairman.  You  are  stating  one  side  of  the  question,  and  stating  it  wonderfully 
well  and  in  a  forcible  way,  but  you  have  omitted  to  ascertain  the  fact  that  on  the 
other  side  the  allegation  is  constantly  made  to  the  committee  that  with  all  this  pro- 
gress one  portion  of  the  human  race  has  been  placed  in  a  very  wretched  condition — a 
hopeless  condition  almost — that  pauperism  and  want  and  destitution  have  increased 
in  England.  In  this  country  pauperism  was  unknown  in  many  of  the  years  which 
you  have  described,  through  which  years  all  have  been  able  to  live.  Now  we  have  a 
great  mass  (variously  estimated  at  from  five  hundred  thousand  to  two  million  of  per- 
sons) absolutely  sutt'ering  for  want  of  the  necessaries  of  life,  and  living  on  charity. 

Mr.  Coffin.  I  can  refer  you  to  one  illustration.     In  my  native  town  in  New  Hamp-  , 
shire,  the  population  never  exceeded  twenty-four  hundred,  and  in  former  d  ys  the 
poor  supported  by  the  town  varied  from  eighteen  to  thirty  individuals ;  now  t  e  poor 
are  supported  by  the  county,  but  I  think  that  not  more  than  three  or  four  ar  •  credited 
to  the  town. 

Mr.  Thompson.  Is  it  a  manufacturing  town  ? 

Mr.  Coffin.  No,  sir;  it  is  almost  wholly  agricultural,  but  it  is  in  a  manufacturing 
community  which  pays  high  enough  wages  to  keep  agricultural  towns  even  as  pros- 
perous as  my  owu  from  growing,  by  attracting  away  the  labor  which  agriculture  can- 
not employ. 

The  Chairman.  That  fact  does  not  meet  the  main  question.  The  fact  of  paui)erism 
being  now  a  strong  element  in  the  present  constitution  of  society  is  admitted.  A  com- 
parison, however,  would  be  interesting  of  the  present  state  of  society  in  England, 
with  its  condition,  for  example,  in  the  time  of  Queen  Elizabeth,  when  the  poor  laws 


8 

■were,  passed,  owing  to  the  fact  that  the  sturdy  beggars  all  over  Englaud  compelled 
the  people  to  give  theiu  relief  on  the  highways,  whicli  led  to  the  enartment  of  the 
])oor  laws.  I  suppoHe  that  if  you  had  investigated  the  relative  condition  of  society  in 
Englaud  at  that  period  and  at  the  ]ireseut  period,  you  would  find  a  less  percentage  of 
panperisui  uow  than  then.  I  ask  you  the  question  to  see  ^\  hether  you  haVe  consid- 
ered that  point. 

Mr.  Coffin.  I  have  some  facts  to  present  hearing  upon  it. 

The  CiiAiKMAN.  You  can  get  the  statistics  of  English  i>auperism  from  the  Blue- 
Books,  and  they  show  that  for  the  last  ten  years  from  SdOjOdO  to  1,(100,000  ]iersons 
have  been  relieved  annually  at  public  ex]»ense  in  England,  in  a  po]»ulatiou  of,  say, 
about  30,000,000.  That  is,  that  about  3^  pc^r  cent,  of  the  population  are  in  a  condi- 
tion to  re([uire  relief  ami  jniblic  help.  That  is  in  a  time  of  prosjierity,  so  that  it 
seems  to  be  a  normal  ctmdition  resulting  from  the  manufacturing  system  in  England 
that  about  3^  per  cent,  of  the  poj»ulation  is  reduced  to  a  condition  of  jiaujierism. 
Now,  unless  previous  to  the  introduction  of  the  manufacturing  system  a  state  of 
things  as  bad  or  worse  existed,  it  would  appear  that  the  establishnient  of  the  manu- 
facturing system  has  had  something  to  do  with  its  pauperism,  and  your  case  would 
probably  break  down,  although  I  suspect  it  to  be  a  fact,  that  the  paupers  now  have 
more  of  the  actual  comforts  of  life  than  those  who  were  not  paupers  had  then. 

Mr.  Coffin.  The  last  English  BIue-Book  gives  the  number  of  persons,  exclusive  of 
vagrants,  in  the  several  unions  and  jiarishes  under  boards  of  guardians,  on  January  1 
of  each  year  since  1863 — those  that  receive  indoor  and  outdoor  relief.  The  Blue-Book 
also  shows  the  amount  of  relief  given.    I  present  the  following  table: 


EN<iLAND  AND  WALES. 

18C3 ... 

3864 

]865 

1866 

3867 

18«8 

1869 

1870 

1871 

1872 

1873 

1874 

1875 

1876 

1877 

1878 

iiiEi.ANn. 

1 803 fifi.  228 

1876 85,330 

scori.AXn. 

1863; 120,284 

1876 90,  404 


§ 

s 

s  s 

■^= 

■z 

c  — 

~ 

O 

o 

■=• 

a 

H 

^ 

< 

1, 142,  624 

20,  590,  356 

£6,  527,  036 

1,  009,  289 

20,  834,  496 

6,  423,  381 

971,433 

21,085,139 

6,  264, 966 

920,  344 

21,  342,  864 

6,  423,  381 

958,  824 

21,  608,  286 

6, 264,  966 

1,  034,  823 

21,  882,  059 

6,  439, 517 

1,  039,  549 

22, 164,  847 

6,  959,  840 

1,079,391 

22,  457,  366 

7,  498,  059 

1,  081,  926 

22,  760,  3.59 

7,  673, 100 

977,  664 

23,  067,  a35 

7,  644,  307 

890,  372 

23, 356,  414 

7,  886,  724 

829,  281 

23,  648,  609 

8, 007,  403 

815,  587 

23,  944,  459 

7, 692, 169- 

749,  593 

24,  244,  010 

7,  664,  957 

72-',  350 

24,  547,  309 

7,  488,  481 

742,  703 

24,  854,  397 

7,  400,  966 

.5.  716,  975 
5,  350.  950 


3,  126,  587 
3,  593,  929 


701,  031 
1,018,497 


736,  028 
858,  907 


We  see  that  in  England,  in  1863,  the  per  cent,  of  population  receiving  aid  was  5.5.^1, 
■whereas  in  1876  it  was  3.06;  in  Ireland,  in  18H3,  it  was  l.l.'i,  while  in  1876  it  was  l.o'J; 
in  Scotland,  1863,  it  was  3.84;  in  1876  it  was  reduced  to  '2.()8. 

I  do  not  know  the  number  of  spindles  in  operation  in  Great  Britain  in  1^63,  but  as 
there  were  17,.'"i00,000  in  184.5,  while  at  the  present  time  the  number  is  about  40,000,000, 
I  suppose  2.5,000,000  may  be  an  approximate  number.  The  period  since  1"^63  has  been 
the  most  active  in  the  history  of  Great  Britain.  There  has  been  a  far  greater  develop- 
ment of  machinery  than  at  any  other  period  of  her  history,  and  yet  pauperism  has 
declined  from  5.55  per  cent,  to  3.06.  Undoubtedly  there  is  at  the  present  time  great  dis- 
tress in  England,  but  it  has  come  on  within  the  last  eighteen  months.  Can  we  say  in  the 
face  of  these  official  returns  that  the  use  of  machinery  increases  pau]>erism  ?  The 
reverse  seems  to  be  the  case  in  England  and  Scotland.  I  think  that  if  we  were  to  make 
diligent  search  we  should  find  the  causes  of  the  present  distress  in  England  in  other 


9 

directions.  Some  of  the  causes  that  have  produced  depression  here  are  operative 
there,  and  some  are  not,  .^^hile  some  that  are  operative  there  have  «ot  been  known 
here  En-laud  has  had  no  war,  uo  inflation  of  currency.  DunuR  our  troubles  she 
swept  aw^v  our  connnerce  and  became  almost  wholly  the  world's  earner,  mauulact^ 
urer  and  banker.  She  protited  by  our  misfortunes  an.l  by  the  disturbances  on  the 
continent  between  Germany,  Austria,  and  Italy  in  18.;<i,  and  between  I'^-ance  and 
Germany  in  1S7U-'71.  Her  accumulations  have  been  so  vast  that  she  has  been  able  to 
miW  J  the  evil  dav  till  now.  Havins  but  a  small  area,  she  has  not  been  called  upon 
to  erstmct  railroads,  as  we  have  been  doing.  In  lSr,-2  the  mileage  was  ll,oo.,  cost- 
incr  £:}tir,,«218,00n;  in  is77  there  were  16,872  miles  in  the  United  kingdom  with  a  cap- 
ital of  £.i5H->14,()00,  or,  at  =?5  the  pound,  $:$,290,000,000,  agamst  our  81,000  with  a 
arger  capita  .  Iler  roads  were  not  constructed  in  solitudes,  and  although  they  uiay 
not  all  hive  made  immediate  returns  to  those  who  built  them,  they  were  of  imme- 
diate  value  in  the  development  of  trade.  .,,,.,,  x  j 

Among  the  civuses  of  the  present  distress  in  England,  incident  to  that  country  and 
not  to  this,  is  the  gradual  decrease  of  acreage  devoted  to  the  production  of  food.  Here 
the  acreage  is  constantly  on  the  increase,  and  there  is  a  steady  and  rapid  advance- 
ment in  the  productions  of  the  farm  and  pasture ;  there  we  find  the  reverse.  I  give 
the  following  table  from  the  Blue-Book : 

Jcrmqc  in  cereal'^. 

Acres. 

iftfi.  li,4:32.r,o:i 

1™'. 11,004,940 

1871) ' 

6'r«x.s,  11(u-,  Imps,  <i)id  elorer. 

'  -        J      -t    '  Acres. 

1^,  5,679,431^ 

13;!. 6,641,180 

lo7t> - ---  —  --•  ------  ..---• 

Vermanent  pasture. 

■^  Acres. 

.,.„  •2-2,052, 510 

S;;::::::::::::::::::::::':::::::::::::::::----'-"----"---" ^^-^-^-^^ 

Horns  in  (irrat  Biiiain. 
,^.^  2,631,306 

^^i" ...     2,834.241 

187*. 

<■  utile . 

,^.,  8,731.473 

J^L>~, ...     9,957,180 

1876 • 

Sheep. 
■         _  '  33,137,951 

]^''. 32,2.52,570 

1876 

Sirinc. 

,..>  4,221,000 

1*^1". ....     3,7.54,000 

1870 

The  acreage  in  cereals  is  diminishing,  while  pasturage  and  grass  land.s  are  increas- 
ing. Horses  and  cattle  are  increasing,  while  sheep  and  swine  are  diminishiug.  Popu- 
lation is  increasing.  Since  1863  the  acreage  of  grain  has  been  reduced  3(w,000  acres 
while  the  increase  of  population  has  been  4,365,000.  Of  course  the  food  is  imported 
.  and  the  modern  inventions  in  steam  transportation  enable  a  nation  in  tunes  of  peace 
to  rely  on  foreign  supply  ;  but  it  has  to  be  paid  for  by  the  operative  with  money. 
Having  no  laudato  cult-ivate  he  can  transform  his  labor  into  food  only  through  wagers 
received  at  the  factory.  When  the  supply  and  demand  for  goods  are  equal  (and  the 
demand  will  always  bring  up  the  supply)  all  goes  well,  but  the  ^f  «*  ^f^  ;"p  "^^^  *Jj 
demand  is  felt  at  bnce  at  the  factory  by  reason  of  the  rapidity  «*  eo'"7"V*;f^^°"  X 
transportation.  And  with  the  inability  to  save  which  see"\^ «^^^f f J"f,  VV/f orm 
English  operative,  a  few  weeks  idleness  brings  that  distress  which  shows  m  the  form 

^  Now^f'S^'chiuerv  has  caused  pauperism  in  England,  what  shall  we  say  of  Italy 
where  there  is  no  m^achinery  and  where  pauperism  abounds  ?     France  has  a  great  deal 


10 

of  machinery,  not  so  much  as  EnijlatKl,  l>"it  pauperism  does  not  prevail  to  any  extent, 
^s-hile  in  Spain  wbere  there  is  no  machinery  the  country  is  overrun  with  befrgars. 

We  have  no  data  in  this  country  i)y  which  we  can  ascertain  to  a  certainty  whether 
pauperism  is  on  the  increase  or  <lecrease.  We  have  only  reports  of  cities  and  towns 
from  year  to  year,  l)ut  nothing  from  which  we  can  predicate  anything  one  wav  or  the 
other.  It  is  said  that  the  number  of  tiie  poor  is  increasing,  but  it  is  only  assertion.  I 
am  diapo.sed  to  think  that  in  1875-'7()-'77,  the  number  of  men  out  of  employment  was 
greater  than  in  lrt7:}-'74 ;  and  I  am  also  of  the  opinion  that  there  are  fewer  men  out  of 
employment  to-day  than  a  year  ago;  but  my  opinion,  with  no  facts  behind  it,  is  of 
little  account.  That  pauperism  is  increasing  out  of  proportion  to  the  increa.se  of  popu- 
lation in  this  country,  I  am  not  ready  to  admit  without  soujething  besides  assertion. 
Colonel  Carroll  D.  Wright,  chief  of  the  bureau  ()f  statistics  in  Ma.ssachusetts,  has 
given  testimony  upon  this  point,  and  I  need  tiot  further  pursue  it. 

But  allow  me  to  revert  once  more  to  the  Ulue  Book  of  Great  ]{ritain.  It  is  said  that 
machinery  produces  pauperism,  and  pauperism  leads  to  crime.  If  such  be  these<|uence, 
what  shall  we  say  to  the  following  exhibit  of  commitments  for  trial  in  the  I'uited 
Kingdom  : 


Tears. 

England. 

Scotland. 

1862. 

20,  001 
20,818 

19,  .506 
19,614 
18,  849 
18,  971 

20,  091 
19,318 
17,  .578 
16. 209 
14,  801 
14,  893 
1.5,  195 
14,714 
16,  078 

3,  630 

1863 

3,404 

1864 •- 

3,212 

1865 

.3, 1 17 

186C  

3,  003 

1867 

3,  005 

1868 

3,384 

1869 

3,510 

1870     

3,  046 

1871 

2,948 

1872 

3.044 

1873 

2,  755 

1874 

2,880 

1 875 

2,  372 

1876 

2,703 

Ireland. 


6,660 
6,078 
.5,086 
4.657 
4,326 
4,561 
4,127 
4,151 
4,936 
4,485 
4,471 
4.544 
4,130 
4,248 
4,146 


In  1862  the  total  in  the  three  countries  was  30,291,  while  in  187G,  with  an  increase  of 
4,365,000  population,  the  commitments  ran  down  to  22,937,  What  shall  we  infer  from 
this  ?  That  justice  is  not  so  vigilant  in  Great  Britain  now  as  in  1803  ?  Or  that  from 
some  cause  there  is  really  less  crime ?  I  will  not  attempt  any  elucidation  here;  but 
behind  this  fact  there  is  a  good  deal  of  food  for  thought,  especially  for  all  those  who 
believe  that  the  world  is  going  to  the  dogs  about  as  fast  as  it  can  go. 

Further  on  I  shall  have  something  more  to  say  in  regard  to  the  sentiment  of  the 
world  in  relation  to  pauperism. 

There  is  a  class  of  inventions  that  we  may  terra  generic,  which  have  had  a  great 
effect  upon  the  condition  of  society.  There  is  the  telegraph,  unknown  at  the  begin- 
ning of  this  new  civilization.  There  are  to-day  from  40,000  to  50,000  telegraph  offices 
in  the  world.  We  may  think  of  the  great  number  of  men  that  have  been  called  from 
the  farm,  the  workshop,  the  smithery,  to  make  the  wire,  to  construct  the  machines, 
the  insulators,  the  batteries,  and  all  other  things  employed  in  telegraphing.  The 
operatives  were  doing  something  else.  They  have  been  called  from  a  low  employment 
into  this  higher  occupation,  which  requires  education,  lifting  them  in  the  scale  of  civ- 
ilization. The  telegraph  now  gives  employment  to  a  large  number  of  women  who 
before  were  shut  up  to  the  industry  of  the  household. 

Photography  is  another  generic  invention  which  has  had  a  very  wide  eft'ect,  even 
affecting  the  egg  markets  of  the  world.  That  is  one  reason  why  we  do  not  get  eggs 
cheaper  to-day.  It  has  affected  the  rag-pickers  of  Paris  and  every  other  city  in  the  in- 
creased use  of  paper.  Another  generic  invention  is  then,seof  India  rubber,  affecting  not 
only  people  of  this  country  but  the  natives  of  Borneo  and  South  America.  So  also 
with  gutta-percha.  Then  there  have  been  the  great  developments  in  chemistry,  a 
utilization  of  the  articles  that  were  formerly  thrown  away.  Coal-tar,  for  instance,  is 
now  wholly  utilized,  and  its  products  have  become  great  articles  of  commerce. 

Agricultural  machinery  is  not  generic.  The  reaper  was  invented  in  1833,  but  was 
not  brought  out  until  1844,  When  there  were  150  machines  put  in  operation.  In  1850 
there  were  about  5,000  reapers  in  operation.  So  clumsy  and  so  unwieldy  were  they, 
that  in  18.52  the  judges  of  the  New  York  State  Agricultural  A.ssociation  decided  that  it 
was  not  then  determined  that  the  mower  would  supersede  the  scythe  or  the  reaper 
the  cradle.  And  yet  invention  has  been  going  on  until  to-day  it  emancipates  the 
farmer  from  the  tyranny  of  the  men,  the  binders,  who,  starting  in  the  South,  make 
progress  with  the  season,  the  ripening  of  the  wheat,  and  move  north  to  Minnesota, 


11 

making  tlie  farnieiV  uecessify  their  op]»()rtuuity,  ami  compelliiijr  him  to  pay 
tbeiii  from  $:?  to  ^."j  a  day.  My  brother  in  Miiinenota  had  to  pay  that  much  last  year, 
and  he  found  the  exactious  of  the  binders  so  great  that  when  the  harvest  lame  ou  this 
year  he  seiured  a  self-hinding  reaper  for  his  own  protection,  otliervvise  he  could  not 
have  atfoided  to  harvest  his  grain.  The  result  is,  we  are  al)le  to  take  9!lH»,0O0,0O0  a 
year  from  Enghind  for  our  food  products  alone. 

The  Cn.viHM.vx.  Permit  me  to  put  a  fact  in  there  as  to  the  increased  demand  pro- 
duced by  new  inventions.  Five  years  ago  the  tirst  order  was  given  for  wire  for  the 
self-binder.  The  order  was  for  about  .")0  tons  of  wire.  The  next  year  the  order  was 
about  :5()(l  tons;  the  next  year  the  order  w-as  '2,800  tons;  the  next  year  it  was  6,!")00 
tons,  and  in  the  present  year  the  order  for  wire  for  self-binders  has  been  12,000  tons. 
You  can  juit  that  fact  with  your  i>resent  facts  to  show  the  rapid  progress  that  is  being 
made  in  that  direction.  Fourteen  thousand  tons  of  iron  twenty  years  ago  would  have 
covered  the  entire  product  of  wire  for  the  Fnited  State.s  for  all  purposes  whatsoever. 

Mr.  CoKFix.  Besides  that,  sir,  the  invention  of  the  cattle  barb  has  made  wire  fences 
practicable,  and  all  through  last  spring  they  were  built  at  the  rate  of  IbO  miles  a 
day,  each  foot  of  fence  using  about  7  feet  of  wire — all  to  the  gain  of  the  farmer,  the 
iron-worker,  and  to  the  preservation  of  our  timber  for  more  im[)ortaut  uses. 

This  new  civilization  has  its  power  in  the  development  of  the  forces  of  na- 
ture. Before  the  beginning  of  manufactures  there  were  coal  deposits  in  Pennsyl- 
vania as  there  had  been  from  the  day  of  creation.  But  the  time  came  when  inven- 
tion, capital,  and  labor  together  employed  the  stored-up  sunlight  of  the  primeval  ages 
for  the  benefit  of  the  world.  Let  us  see  how  coal  and  water  have  been  employed  to 
do  the  work  of  human  muscles  during  the  last  half  century.  Take  the  State  of  Mas- 
sachusetts in  187.5  and  let  us  see  what  was  done.  The  horse-power  of  the  steam-engines 
of  Massachusetts  in  187.5  was  rated  at  '20H,l(jG  horses,  and  the  water-power  at  :U8.74H 
horses,  making  a  total  of  .')"26,914  horjes,  which  was  equal  to  the  labor  of  1,912,608 
men,  perhaps  300,000  more  than  the  entire  pojuilatiou  of  the  State. 

By  the  census  of  l'^70  the  horse-power  in  steam-engines  in  the  whole  country  was 
1,213,000,  and  in  water-power  1,130.000,  a  total  of  2,343,000,  which  is  equal  to  the 
labor  of  14,05>~,000  men,  a  horse-power  being  estimated  to  the  muscular  force  of  six 
men. 

I  come  now  to  railway  transportation.  The  Massachusetts  railway  reports  for  187G 
show  1,030  locomotives  at  work.  One  of  our  ablest  engineers,  Mr.  Edward  Appleton, 
has  set  himself  to  see  what  those  locomotives  would  do  when  compared  with  the  use  of 
horses  on  common  roads,  and  he  estimates  (after  throwing  out  the  locomotives  that 
are  used  on  tracks  that  are  being  repaired  and  in  machine  shops)  682  locomotives  in 
use,  and  that  the  work  performed  by  them  would  be  e(|ual  to  1,519,496  horses  on  com- 
mon roads.  Taking  his  formula  and  applying  it  to  the  locomotives  of  the  United 
States,  as  given  in  Poor's  Manual,  we  find  that  the  locomotives  in  the  entire  country 
are  doing  the  work  of  29,676,960  horses  on  common  roads. 

The  cost  of  transportation  has  greatly  decreased  since  the  introduction  of  railroads, 
even  over  canal  transportation.  Last  summer  it  cost  but  fifty  cents  to  transport  a 
barrel  of  flour  from  Saint  Louis  to  Boston.  How  far  can  a  barrel  be  transported  on  a 
common  road?  Not  much  more  than  five  miles.  Even  if  a  man  were  to  make  a  busi- 
ness of  it,  he  coTild  not  transjtort  a  barrel  more  than  ten  miles  at  that  price.  Contrast 
this  with  1830,  when,  on  the  Erie  Caual,  the  cheapest  transportation  of  that  period,  it 
cost  $18.32  to  transport  a  ton  of  frieght  from  Albany  to  Buffalo. 

In  1840  the  sjieed  of  the  Atlantic  steamships  was  8.3  knots  per  hour,  and  in  1877  it 
was  15.6  knots.     The  consumption  of  coal  in  1840  was  4.7  ;  in  1877, 1.9  tons. 

The  Chairm.ax.  Do  you  mean  ])er  horse-power  f 

Mr.  Coffin.  To  be  precise,  let  me  give  Mr.  Bramwell's  statement  that  within  even  the 
last  fifteen  jears  the  <onsum]itiou  of  coal  in  regular  ocean  steamers  has  been  brought 
down  from  5  pounds  to  If  pounds  per  gross  indicated  horse-power  i)er  hour.  But  in 
this  connection  I  call  your  attention  to  the  fact  that  although  the  pound  of  coal  can 
accomplish  three  times  as  much  to-day  as  fifteen  years  ago,  and  ten  times  as  much  as 
it  could  at  a  time  within  our  own  recollection,  we  do  not  get  along  with  one-third  the 
coal  we  used  in  1863.  Ou  the  contrary,  there  was  j)robably  never  so  much  coal  used 
for  st(  am  as  now.  Its  increased  ttliciency  has  cheapened  its  use.  or  the  power  which 
is  its  product,  and  this  cheapness  has  increased  the  demand  not  only  for  power  but 
actually  for  coal.  Aixl  I  believe  the  same  rule  holds  tiue  of  labor  when  its  t-fficiency 
is  increased.  I  think  it  is  apparent  that  if  the  locomotive  were  blotted  out  of  exis- 
tence, if,  in  the  matter  of  transportation,  we  w  ere  to  be  set  back  to  our  condition  of  a 
half  century  ago,  vast  areas  of  this  country,  now  prosperous  and  powerful  States, 
would  be  solitudes — the  home  of  the  buft'alo  and  the  Indian.  Let  us  not  forget  that 
the  first  furrow  in  the  State  of  Iowa  was  turned  in  1833,  and  that  up  to  18.56  Min- 
nesota did  not  raise  encuigh  wheat  to  feed  her  population. 

The  numljer  of  operatives  engaged  in  the  manufacture  of  cotton  goods  throughout 
the  world  is  estimated  by  Mr.  Edward  Atkinson  at  1.10(1,000.  The  English  statisti- 
cians estimate  the   number   1,300,000.     I  take   the  larger.     The   cotton  manufacturers 


12 

siiitr  t  liiii  m;u'liiiu-ry  lias  increased  individual  lal)or  a  thousand  ft)l<l :  tlieroloiv  tlicre  are 
1, :{()(),( (ID  |ifr.s<)Ms«'in|il(»yt'd  in  cotton  nianul'aftun's  tlironj^iiont  the  world,  doin<;  the  work 
that,  under  the  idd  way, of  haud-looni  and  tliesi)innin}r-wheel,  woultl  recpiire  tiie.labor 
of  every  individual  o  i  the  face  of  the  earth,  a!s<!;iven  by  the  Alnianach  de  Gotha.  lu 
]«;{(•  the  i)riee  of  prints  was  50  cents  a  yard — not  so  good  a  (juality  as  that  which  you 
can  i)nrcliase  to-day  at  5  cents  a  yard.  I  have  at  home  a  i)iece  of  the  clotli  such  as 
was  inanulaetured  in  ISW.  It  was  given  to  me  by  Mr.  Samuel  Bachelor,  one  of  our 
veneralde  manufacturers  of  New  Enghind.  It  is  of  such  (juality  as  to-day  would  be 
hardly  used  for  the  lining  of  shoes;  but  tlieu  it  was  considered  a  very  good  class  of 
cotton  goods. 

The  CiiAiK.MAX.  In  1700  a  man  was  executed  in  Dublin  for  some  crime.  He  was  a 
linen  weaver,  and  in  his  dying  speech  he  said  that  if  it  had  not  been  for  the  introduc- 
tion of  cotton  superseding  his  trade,  he  would  not  have  been  lednced  to  ])overty  and 
would  not  have  been  compelled  to  steal,  and  he  charged  his  latr  on  tlie  invention  and 
introduction  of  cotton  into  England  wliich  had  destroyed  his  business.  1I«^  made  (piite 
a  strong  jdiilosophical  politico-economical  argument  in  his  last  dying  s]>eech,  warning 
the  people  to  turn  cotton  out  of  Phigland  because  it  would  bring  everybody  into  the 
same  unfortunate  condition  as  it  had  brought  hira. 

Mr.  Coffin.  If  you  visit  Garsed's  manufactory  in  Philadelphia,  you  will  tiiid  his 
engine  doing  with  seven  tons  of  coal  the  work  of  seventy  thousand  men.  If  we  reckon 
seven  tons  of  coal  as  costing  p2l,  and  the  labor  of  seventy  thousand  men  at  ■'j;!  a  day, 
then  it  is  $21  as  against  .$70,000  of  expenditure  saved  in  muscular  etlbrt.  Does  it 
throw  men  out  of  employment?  Does  it  not  liberate  them  from  muscular  toil  '!  Does 
it  not  leave  them  to  do  something  better  and  higher  '!  Instead  of  eni])loying  their  mus- 
cles they  employ  their  brains. 

The  Chairman.  Take  the  bluing  machinery  introduced  into  manufacturing  and 
disjtlacing  twenty  or  thirty  men.  They  have  no  place  to  go  and  use  their  brains;  they 
ore  tnrrf'i  out  of  this  particular  work  and  have  uo  other  occupation.  What  are 
they  to  do  ? 

j>ir.  iyUFFiN.  Under  the  conditions  of  life  in  this  world  there  will  always  be  a  re- 
adjustment of  things,  and  some  men  are  going  to  be  thrown  out  of  employment  and 
forced  to  seek  new  fields  of  labor.  That  is  the  operation  of  physical  law,  and  can  no 
more  be  changed  by  legislation  than  the  revolution  of  the  earth  on  its  axis. 

The  Chairman.  You-do  not  deny  that  imn\ediate  distress  is  produced,  but  you  think 
that  ultimate  benetit  results? 

Mr.  Coffin.  It  would  cause  immediate  distress  if  all  niachines  were  invented  at  once 
and  came  into  universal  use  at  once,  but  neither  is  true.  A  machine  is  always  of  slow 
growth.  It  takes  years  to  bring  it  to  perfection.  Take  the  locomotive,  for  ex- 
ample. Stephenson's  first  machine  weighed  from  three  to  four  tons.  How  crude 
it  was!  It  has  taken  three-quarters  of  a  century  to  bring  it  to  its  present  degree 
of  perfection,  and  it  has  not  reached  its  ultimate  power.  The  locomotives  of  the 
future  will  accomplish  far  more  work  than  those  now  in  use.  Did  the  locomotive 
come  into  universal  use  at  once?  How  many  men  did  it  throw  out  of  employment  the 
tirst  year  of  its  introduction  ?  Very  few,  if  any.  They  were  wanted  on  the  railroads. 
Ira])rovements  of  the  last  twenty-five  years,  paiticularly  the  hydro-extractor,  have 
greatly  decreased  the  labor  required  to  refine  a  pound  of  sugar;  but  the  result  in  the 
long  run  has  been  that  everybody  nses  refined  sugar  instead  of  the  moist  brown  sugar 
we  used  to  have,  and  I  do  not  doubt  that  more  operatives  are  employed  in  the  business. 
Take  the  reaper  for  illnstration,  invented  in  1833.  In  184»,  only  one  hundred  and  fifty 
in  use.  In  1K5'2,  at  a  trial  of  reapers  in  Geneva,  New  York,  there  were  nine  machines 
by  different  makers,  and  so  imperfect  were  they  that  not  one  could  stop  in  the  grain 
and  start  again  without  backing  to  get  up  speed.  Nineteen  years  had  pa,ssed  .since 
the  taking  out  of  the  first  patent,  and  there  were  not  at  that  time  only  about  eight 
thousand  machines  in  use.  Since  then  more  than  two  million  reapers  have  been 
manufactured,  and  the  manufacture  is  going  on  at  the  rate  of  about  one  hundred  and 
fifty  thousand  per  annum.  If  these  machines  had  all  been  brought  into  use  at  once  they 
would  doubtless  have  made  a  great  disturbance  of  manual  labor;  but,  as  I  have 
said,  no  machine  ever  does  so  come.  I  have  shown  that  before  the  capitalist  can 
start  his  manufactory  he  must  build  it,  and  that  he  calls  a  great  number  of  men 
from  other  employments.  The  moment  that  they  left  one  employment  for  another  read- 
justment began,  and  it  was  so  gradual  that  there  was  no  immediate  distress.  I  have  yet 
to  find  proof  that  the  use  of  machinery  causes  any  considerable  distress;  but,  on  the  other 
hand,  I  will  show  you  that  for  the  lack  of  it  there  hasbeen  terrible  distress.  China  has  no 
machinery — no  railroads.  All  labor  in  that  country  is  muscular,  and  yet  we  have  seen 
several  provinces  depopulated  by  famine,  notwithstanding  the  eftbrts  of  the  govern- 
ment to  relieve  the  distress.  It  was  an  impossibility.  There  was  food  enough  in  the 
world ;  we  could  have  supplied  it  in  abundance  ;  but  if  we  had  sent  millions  of  bushels 
of  grain  to  Shanghai  or  Pekin,the  starvation  would  have  gone  on  all  the  same  for 
want  of  railway  transportation.  Take  the  famine  in  the  East  Indies  a  few  years  ago 
as  an  illustration.     The  British  govei-nment  piled  the  docks  at  Madras  with  mountains 


13 

of  food  ;  it  employed  all  rbe  cait.>  it  could  obtain  :  Imt  with  all  the  nieaiiM  at  their  coui- 
iiiand  it  was  found  imi)ossi))le  to  relieve  the  distrews,  and  the  <ro\ernment,  to  prevent  a 
recurrence,  has  constructed  railways,  not  sim{dy  as  cotiunercial  enterprises,  but  in  the 
interest  of  an  advanced  civilization  and  iu  accordance  with  humanitarian  ideas. 

We  shall  find,  I  think,  when  we  examine  this  ipiestion  closely,  that  the  use  of  ma- 
chinery instead  of  causin^f  distress  alleviates  it,  and  that  it  will  be  seen  that  instead 
of  supplanting-  labor  creates  ever  a  new  demand  for  it  l)y  tlie  opeuiufj  of  new  fields. 
I  would  not  be  understood  as  saying  that  machinery  does  not  necessitate  a  change  of 
occu])ation  ;  that  is  inevitable.  It  beU)ngs  to  progress.  If  it  is  complained  of  as  a  hard- 
ship for  one  who  know's  only  one  occupation  to  be  compelled  to  change  it  for  another 
which  he  must  acquire  in  old  age,  I  admit  it,  and  have  only  to  say  that  there  are  a  great 
many  other  hardships  in  life  under  the  domain  of  physical  law.  The  tire  burns  my 
bouse,  the  hail  destroys  my  wheat,  the  sun  scorches  it,  rust  renders  it  valueless,  and  I 
am  powerless  under  these  forces  of  nature,  Just  as  I  am  when  the  inti'oduction  of  a  new 
machine  forces  me  to  seek  other  employment.  Is  it  said  that  we  cannot  prevent  tire, 
hail,  rust,  and  mildew,  but  we  can  prohibit  the  use  of  machinery  ?  Very  well.  Put  oa 
the  prohibition  and  become  Chinese,  for  that  is  what  we  shall  be — stationary,  utterly 
uon-progressive. 

Parilon  nie  for  elaborating  this  point  at  such  length,  but  I  have  been  led  on  in  con- 
sideration of  the  loose  ideas  atloat  in  regard  to  it. 

The  Chairmax.  You  do  not  deny  that  immediate  distress  is  produced,  but  you  think 
that  ultimate  benefit  results  ? 

Mr.  CoFFix.  That  is  the  iJroposition.  I  would  not  have  it  understood  as  immediate 
relief. 

The  Chairman.  On  the  contrary,  immediate  distress. 

Mr.  Coffin.  If  it  causes  immediate  distress,  it  produces  ultimate  benefit.  It  leads 
men  to  a  higher  plane  of  existence.  With  the  capacity  whieti  our  jieople  have  to 
change  their  occupations  I  doubt  this  immediate  distress.  I  have  never  been  able 
to  find  instances  or  proof  of  it.  P^or  illustration,  blued  screws,  blued  iron  is  much  more 
used  than  a  few  years  ago.  and  nickle  finishing  is  a  new  art.  In  Lowell  each  factory 
building  for  thirty  years  has  been  increasing  its  product  and  diminishing  its  hands  ; 
but  the  city  has  increased  several  fold,  and  Lawrence,  nearly  as  large,  has  growu  up 
a  few  miles  from  it. 

Take  another  illustration.  Under  the  old  process  of  cleaning  cotton,  before  the  ia- 
ventiou  of  the  Whil  ney  gin,  a  man  could  clean  four  pounds  a  day.  The  gins  now  iu 
use  clean  4,0U0  pounds  a  day.  The  cotton  crop  of  this  country  last  year  was  estimated 
at  4,700,000  bales.  It  probably  exceeded  that.  That  would  be  '2,021,000,000  pounds. 
Under  the  old  way  it  would  have  required  .50.3,000,000  days'  work  at  .*l  per  day  (that 
is  150.5,000,000)  to  clean  cotton — a  work  which  is  doue  at  present  by  1,614  men  work- 
ing 313  days  iu  the  year,  and  costing  not  over  $i500,000. 

From  this  presentation  it  is  clearly  manifest,  it  seems  to  uie,  that  through  the  em- 
ployment of  the  forces  of  nature,  through  discovery,  through  invention,  by  capital  and 
labor  working  together,  there  has  been  a  great  increase  of  accumulated  earnings. 
Labor  claims  that  it  has  done  pretty  much  all  that  has  been  accomplished,  and  tliat 
capital  is  oppressive.  Waiving  for  the  preseut  an  examination  of  the  claim,  let  us 
glance  at  some  of  the  accumulations  of  labor  and  capital  jointly  during  the  last  few 
years. 

The  first  savings  bank  in  this  country  was  established  in  Philadelphia  in  1816.  The 
deposits  in  1830  iu  all  the  banks  of  the  country  were  about  six  millions  of  dollars.  In 
1S76,  as  by  the  American  Almanac,  they  were  a  thousand  million  dollars.  In  general 
banking  we  have  no  data  of  capital  in  1830,  but  the  circulation  iu  1830  was  .$74,248,000, 
or  $5.77  per  individual.  In  1874  the  circulation  (greenbacks  and  national  bank  notes) 
was  $777,538,000.  or  $18.14  per  individual.  I  suppose  that  to-day  it  would  not  be  more 
than  $16  per  individual,  but  I  have  not  the  figures.  The  national  bank  exhibit  for 
December,  1877,  shows : 

Capital  paid  iu $470,  467, 000 

Surplus  fund 122, 776, 000 

Undivided  profits 44,572,000 

Individual  deposits 616, 218, 000 

Or  a  total  of 1 ,  263, 033, 000 

Other  banks  and  trust  companies,  capital  paid  in 223,  .503, 000 

Deposits 1,351,867,000 

1,  575, 370,  000 

Total  banking 2,  838,  403,  000 

I  have  not  been  able  to  obtain,  in  regard  to  insurance,  full  data.  Fire  and  marine 
insurance  are  of   ancient  origin.      Life  insurance  belongs  to  the  new   civilization. 


14 

New  York  joiiitstock  companies  in  1^77  liad  gross  assets  to  tlie  amount  of  $r)9,l)<)l,0()O, 
The  companies  of  other  States  doing  business  in  New  York  liad  gross  assefs  to  the 
amount  of  !i|!77,O47,(H)0.  The  Connecticut  lire  companies  liad  gross  assets  to  the  amount 
of  if;UI(),OO(),00(».  the  Connecticut  life  companies  !i;;>7, Odd, (KHI,  and  tlie  Massachusetts  fire 
and  life  conii>anie8  $140,000,000,  making  a  total  of  !|4 14,047,1 100.  It  is  jtrobable  that  the 
assets  of  all  the  insurance  comjianies  in  the  country  will  aggregate  about  $800,000,000. 
In  lailroads,  the  stocks  and  bonds  in  1^78  amounted  to  $4,4i:?,00O,O()0.  Of  course  there 
is  a  large  amount  of  indebtedness  on  them.     As  to  national  and  State 

securities,  the  amount  of  national  securities  in  1877  was $2,000,000,000 

State  securities  in  1^70 868,000,000 

County  securities  in  1870 157,955,000 

The  securities  of  TiO  towns  in  li^Tti  (according  to  the  American  Almanac, 

page  382) 644,119,000- 

Total :{,  730,  074,  000- 

The  national  bonds  held  abroad  are  said  to  be  no  more  than  $200,000,000,  and  our 
total  indebtedness  held  abroad  is  supi)osed  to  be  about  $.')00,000,000.  The  aggregate 
capital  in  banks  and  insurance,  railroads,  national,  State  and  other  bonds,  tlius  gives 
an  aggregate  of  about  thirteen  thousand  million  dollars.  In  1870  the  census  gave  the 
value  of  property  in  the  United  States  at  thirty  tht)nsand  sixty-eight  millions.  A 
writer  in  an  English  statistical  journal,  in  June,  1877  (Mr.  Bouve),  says  that  the  wealth 
of  England  is  increasing  at  the  rate  of  twelve  hundred  and  fifty  million  dollars  per 
annum.  Mr.  Gladstone  says  that  the  development  since  1800  is  greater  than  that  from 
.Julius  Ca-sar  to  that  date.  Mr.  Edward  Atkinson  has  shown  you  that  labor  takes  95 
to  98  per  cent,  of  the  earnings,  leaving  to  capital  from  2  to  5  per  cent.  I  have  nothing 
to  say  on  that  point,  and  therefore  pass  it. 

But  capital  is  liable  to  utter  annihilati<m.  I  have  no  data  in  reference  to  the  amount 
lost  by  tire  per  annum,  but  several  gentlemen  conversant  with  insuranc«  have  given 
me  their  ojiinion  that  it  amounts  to  at  least  $100,000,000.  Invention  destroys  ca])ital. 
The  manager  of  the  Amoskeag  Mills,  Manchester,  N.  H.,  informed  me  that  no  manu- 
facturer could  afford  to  take  as  a  gift  to-day  a  manufactory  eiiuipped  as  it  was  in  1860.- 
A  gentleman  from  South  Carolina  informed  me  that  one  of  the  manufactories  in  that 
State  was  sold  the  other  day  under  the  aucti(meer"s  hammer;  that  the  men  running  it 
had  been  running  the  same  machinery  that  was  in  use  before  the  war,  and  that  it  had 
bankrujited  theru  simply  because  invention  had  gone  on  so  far  and  so  fast,  that  no 
man  can  take  the  machinery  as  it  was  in  18(30  and  run  it  to-day  and  make  a  living. 

The  Chairman.  Our  own  iron-works  at  Trenton  were  begun  in  184.5.  They  have 
been  rebuilt  practically  five  times  since  1845,  absolutely  rebuilt,  not  on  account  of  de- 
struction by  fire,  but  in  order  to  keep  up  with  the  improvements.  I  speak  of  rolling- 
mills.  Furnaces  have  had  to  be  rebuilt  in  exactly  the  same  way.  For  instance,  no  fur- 
nace that  was  in  existence  twenty  years  ago  coulil  be  run  to-day.  No  uum  could  afi'ord 
to  take  it  as  a  gift  and  run  it. 

Mr.  Coffin.  Progress  destroys  capital.  Fashion  destroys  it.  A  few  years  ago  there 
was  a  large  amount  of  capital  iuvested  in  the  manufacture  of  hoopskirts,  but  the 
ladies  took  it  into  their  heads  not  to  wear  hoopskirts  any  longer,  and  that  capital  was 
utterly  annihilated.  One  remarkable  thing,  however,  has  come  out  of  the  capital  in- 
vested in  the  manufacture  of  crinoline  skirts.  The  inventions  in  the  manufacture  of 
the  steel  used  (thin  strips  of  steel)  have  been  turned  to  good  account  in  other  depart- 
ments of  industry.  Change  of  style  destroys  capital.  If  you  go  into  one  of  our 
manufactories  of  mixed  goods  (cotton  and  wool),  you  will  find  that  the  change  in  taste 
is  constantly  compelling  the  owners  to  banish  their  old  machinery  and  put  up  new. 
At  first  sight  it  seems  to  destroy  the  laborers'  capital,  the  skill  of  handicraft  which 
enables  him  to  earn  more  than  the  wages  of  mere  unskilled  labor.  But  I  think  that 
the  modern  training  of  the  workshop  gives  him  something  better  than  manual  skill, 
namely,  the  intelligence  to  learn  new  things;  and  this  is  a  capital  which  a  change  of 
fashion  does  not  destroy.  In  order  to  show  instances  of  the  extinction  of  capital,  I  will 
state  that  in  1878  there  were  in  this  country  forty-eight  railroads  in  bankruptcy.  These 
companies  represented  thirty-nine  hundred  miles  of  road  and  three  hundred  and  twelve 
million  dullars  of  <  apital.  Last  year  twenty-seven  ra'lroad  companies,  representing 
thirteen  hundred  and  twenty  miles  of  railroad,  had  receivers  appointed. 

The  Chaikman.  Was  there  any  extinction  of  capital  in  that  case? 

Mr.  Coffin.  Yes  ;  about  one- half. 

The  Chairman.  What  kind  of  capital? 

Mr.  Coffin.  Bonds  and  stock. 

The  Chairman.  Was  it  capital  ?  Suppose  I  mark  up  my  goods,  have  I  a  right  to 
regard  that  as  capital  ?  The  fixed  capital  was  the  railroad  itself.  That  still  survives. 
What  was  wiped  out  ? 

Mr.  Coffin.  The  real  capital  was  what  the  road  cost. 

The  Chairman.  But  after  it  became  fixed,  then  the  capital  is  not  what  the  road  cost, 
Init  what  it  was  worth. 


15 

Mr.  Coffin.  Ami  if  is  not  worth  what  it  cost,  or  if  it  uever  will  he  worth  what  it 
cost,  it  is  so  much  acciiniulateil  cajiital  lost  forever. 

Mr.  TliOMi'sox.  Soyiebody  lost  the  money  invested  in  the  bonds. 

The  CHAIKMAN.  Provided  they  paid  for  them. 

Mr.  Thompson.  Of  course  they  paid  for  them,  otherwise  they  could  not  have  pro- 
ceeded against  the  company. 

Mr.  Coffin.  I  come  now  to  the  causes  of  the  present  depression.  Under  this  new 
civilization  an  amount  of  capital  has  been  called  for  far  beyond  the  accumulations  of 
the  past,  and  the  future  has  been  drawn  u[)on  as  never  before  in  the  world's  history. 
The  country  tied  up  in  mortgages  all  its  jjast  accumulations  and  all  its  prospective 
earnings  for  a  long  jieriod  of  years.  Everybody  i.ssued  promises  to  pay.  The  out- 
standing bonds  of  the  United  States  at  present  are  to  the  extent  of  more  than  two 
thousand  million  dollars.  The  States,  counties,  cities,  towns,  villages,  railroads,  man- 
ufacturing comjtanies,  churches,  societies,  individuals,  all  issued  promises  to  pay.  We 
constructed  railroads  where  they  were  not  needed,  in  solitudes  where  there  was  no 
present  and  but  little  prospective  revenue.  We  laid  out  towns  in  the  wilderness,  giv- 
ing a  fictitious  value  to  land.  That  which  had  had  no  value  suddenly  became  assets 
upon  which  we  issued  more  promises  to  pay.  Multitudes,  instead  of  producing,  turned 
their  attention  to  creating  fictitious  values,  upon  which  they  issued  promises  to  pay, 
adding  nothing  to  real  accumulations,  but,  instead,  mortgaging  prospective  earnings. 
It  was  in  no  sense  real  capital,  but  it  could  be  used  as  real.  We  purchased  carriages, 
pictures,  books,  pianos,  articles  delightful  to  have,  but  which  produce  nothing  and 
which  are  constantly  depreciating,  and  we  paid  for  them  in  more  promises  to  pay, 
increasing  the  tictiiious  value,  but  adding  nothing  to  real  accumulations  by  the  pro- 
cess. So  long  as  we  could  meet  our  promises  to  pay  by  issuing  more  jiromises  the  miner 
went  on  mining,  the  furnaces  blazed,  the  rolling-mills  turned  out  iron,  the  railroad- 
builders  went  on  laying  down  tracks  in  the  solitudes,  trade  was  lively,  and  every- 
body seemed  to  be  on  the  road  to  fortune.  We  bought  and  sold,  scattered  that  which 
we  called  money  right  and  left,  losing  sight  of  the  fact  that  everything  in  the  uni- 
verse is  under  the  domain  of  law,  and  that  sooner  or  later  the  laws  which  govern 
human  progress,  which  are  powerful  to  build  up,  are  equally  powerful  to  destroy. 

Society  is  so  comi)lex,  so  interwoven  and  interdependent  under  the  new  civilization, 
that  any  derangement  of  one  wheel  in  the  system  will  be  felt  in  every  part.  We  had 
used  up  so  much  of  our  past  accumulations  in  unproductive  enterprises,  had  issued 
such  an  enormous  quantity  of  promises  to  pay,  that,  when  in  ls73,  a  firm  that  had 
issued  large  promises,  failed  to  meet  its  obligations,  the  whole  fabric  tumbled;  other 
firms  failed  to  meet  their  promises,  and  there  was  a  general  stoppage  of  the  entire 
machinery,  throwing  a  multitude  of  men  out  of  employment.  There  was  nothing  for 
them  to  do,  nothing  to  pay  them  with.  Then  came  the  clearing  away  of  the  wreck  by 
trustees,  receivers,  courts  of  insolvency,  the  wiping  out  of  indebtedness  of  railroads, 
trust  companies,  and  savings-banks.  Men  who  had  invested  their  earnings  in  them, 
■who  thought  themselves  rich,  saw  their  assets  disappear  like  the  fog  before  the  sun.  In 
addition,  cities,  towns,  counties,  and  States  openly  repudiated  their  solemn  obliga- 
tions. 

Amid  this  wreck  and  ruin  labor  complains,  and  we  are  brought  to  the  question  of 
present  earniiuji  and  harings,  1  refer,  in  this  connection,  to  the  statement  of  factory 
operations  given  by  Mr.  W.  A.  Burke,  of  the  N.  E.  Manufacturers'  Association,  show- 
ing that  the  factory  operatives  in  1838  worked  seventy-six  and  one-half  hours,  and  in 
1877  sixty  hours  per  week  ;  that  in  a  factory  in  Nashua,  N.  H.,  withG,100  spindles,  the 
number  of  hands  employed  was,  in  1838,  28  males  and  213  females,  total  231 ;  and,  in 
1877,  males  1.5,  females'  7.5,  total  90.  The  increase  of  wages  comparatively  was,  for 
males  40  per  cent.,  for  females  47  per  cent.  The  amount  of  production  in  1838  was 
1.01  and  3.33  pounds  of  cloth  in  1877.  The  cost  of  production  was  4.79  in  1838  and 
2.58  in  1877.  This  advance  of  wages,  this  decrease  of  the  cost  of  production,  was 
brought  about  by  annihilation  of  the  original  capital.  The  records  show  the  earnings 
and  the  prices ot  board  in  1860  and  1878.     They  are  as  follows: 

Average  earnings  of  girls,  per  week,  in  1838 $3  26 

Board  paid  by  the  girls  themsel  ves 1  37 

Their  net  earnings 189 

Average  earnings  in  1876 - 4  34 

Board  paid  by  the  girls 2  10 

Their  net  earnings 2  24 

.The  Chaik.man.  How  much  is  the  present  rate  of  board — that  of  1878  ? 
Mr.  Coffin.  Two  dollars  and  ten  cents  ;  that  is  what  the  girls  pay. 
The  Chaik.man.  It  is  very  low. 

Mr.  (JOKFix.  Yes,  sir.  The  quality  of  the  board  was  probably  better  in  1878  than  it 
■W.4S  in   1838.     Through  the   kindness  of  Col.  Carroll  D.  Wright,  of  the  Massachu- 


16 

«ett8  statistical  bureau,  I  am  able  to  ineseut  the  foHowiug  statement  comjjiled  from 
his  forthcoming  report  ou  tlie  increase  and  decrease  of  wages  iu  Massachusetts  in  1878, 
as  compared  with  lci(iO: 

Pvr  cent. 

Agiicultiiral  hiborers,  by  the  day (increase)..   :{8 

Agricultural  laborers,  by  the  month (increase)..    15 

Blacksmiths (increase)..  47 

Book-binding,  men (increase)..   17 

Book-binding,  women (increase)..   14 

Boots  and  shoes (increase)..  2G 

Bread  and  crackers,  men (increase) . .  ^8 

Bread  and  crackers,  women (increase) . .   13 

Boxes,  men (increase) . .     3 

Boxes,  women  and  girls (decrease) . .   12 

Brick -makers (increase) . .   12 

Brushes,  men (increase)..     9 

Brushes,  women (decrease) . .     6 

Brushes,  boys (increase) . .  25 

Building  trades (increase)..   1(5 

Cabinet,  men (increase) . .     (j 

Cabinet,  women i (increase) . .  16 

Carpenter (increase)..  23 

Carriages (increase) . .  30 

Clothing (increase) . .     8 

Cotton  goods (increase) . . *  19 

Dress-making (increase)..   19 

Leather (increase)..  28 

Linen (increase) . .  20 

Machinists (increase)..  27 

Cutlery (increase) . .     9 

Soaps - (increase)..  15 

The  Chatrman.  It  is  interesting  to  observe  in  your  running  througli  the  table  that 
the  higher  the  grade  of  intelligence — so  far  as  I  can  judge  from  your  reading  there — 
the  greater  is  the  increase  of  the  rate. 

Mr.  Coffin.  Yes,  sir;  in  most  cases  you  will  find  that  to  be  the  rule. 

Mr.  Coffin  (resuming) : 

Per  vent. 

Type 1. (increase)..  16 

Metals,  tine  work,  jewelry , (increase)..  25 

Millinery (increase)..  23 

Paints (increase) . .  28 

Paper (increase) . .  4.1 

Envelopes (decrease)..  11 

Painting (increase)..  30 

Ships (decrease) . .  52 

Silk (increase) . .  45 

Soap  and  candles (increase ) . .  13 

Stone-cutters (increase)..  8 

Tobacco (increase) , .  22 

Woolen  goods (increase)..  33 

Worsted  goods (increase) . .  22 

Average (increase) . .  24.  4 

The  Chairman.  In  regard  to  the  showing  for  paper,  can  you  account  for  that? 

Mr.  Coffin.  I  presume  that  in  these  figures  the  compiler  may  have  included  under 
that  head  not  only  the  manufacture  of  paper,  but  the  business  of  paper-hanging. 

The  Chairman.  That  is  true ;  there  may  be  the  decorative  part ;  I  do  not  know  what 
all  may  be  in  there. 

Mr.  Coffin.  I  am  also  enabled,  through  the  courtesy  of  Colonel  Wright,  to  present 
a  list  of  the  average  retail  prices  of  articles  of  living  for  1860,  1872,  ami  lS78.  I  will 
not  give  them  unless  you  desire  to  have  them. 

The  Chairman.  I  was  going  to  ask  you  what  is  the  average  rate  of  increase  or  de- 
crease. 

Mr.  Coffin.  I  will  give  you  the  average  rate  of  a  few  of  the  articles  in  1878  as  com- 
pared with  1860.  In  the  matter  of  groceries,  the  increase  was  7  per  cent. ;  provisions, 
28  per  cent. ;  fuel,  5  per  cent. ;  in  dry  goods,  a  decrease  of  9  per  cent. ;  l>oots,  increase  of 
18  per  cent. ;  rents,  increase  of  25  per  cent.  ;  board,  increase  of  49  per  cent.  The  average 
increase  of  the  cost  of  living  is  14^  per  cent.  I  will  run  over  a  few  of  the  articles  that 
are  given  here  in  the  table  showing  the  average  retail  prices.  These  are  as  follows  : 
Flour  (superior  and  family),  rye  flour,  corn-meal,  codfish,  rice,  beans,  tea,  coflee,  sugars, 


17 

molasses,  soaps,  btarcli,  beef  (innip  steak),  imitton,  pork,  Iiam,  lanl,  maiikt-rfci,  butter, 
cbcf.se,  potatoes,  milk,  eggs,  coal,  wood  (lianl  and  piue),  shirtings,  siieeting.s,  canton- 
llannel,  and  so  on. 

The  CiiAiRMAX.  He  arrives  at  his  average  by  dividing  all  tliose  articles  into  the 
total  amount,  I  suppose. 

Mr.  CoKt'ix.  I  do  not  know  how  the  average  has  been  obtained. 

The  CiiAiKMAX.  That  would  be  the  ordinary  way  of  obtaining  it;  yet  the  staple 
articles  alone  ought  to  be  the  ones  he  would  take  in  order  to  arrive  at  a  decision  on 
that  point. 

Mr.  Kick.  Do  you  think,  Mr.  Chairman,  that  the  staple  articles  show  an  increase  ? 

The  Chaikmax.  My  experience  is  that  .such  is  not  the  fact.  Indeed  I  may  .say  that  my 
own  books  show  that  at  no  time  since  the  concern  in  which  I  am  interested  has  existed 
have  the  jirices  of  pork  and  llour  been  as  low  as  they  are  to-day. 

Mr.  Rick.  Those  are  the  two  things  that  enter  most  largely  into  daily  consumption. 

The  Chairman.  My  couclusiou  is  that  pork  and  Hour  are  cheaper  now  than  they 
have  been  since  Id'il. 

Mr.  CoFi-ix.  The  figures  given  in  this  table  for  flour  in  1.%1  are:  In  1860,  $7.61  ;  in 
1672,  §10.75  ;  in  1878,  ,$8.6:5. 

The  CHAIRM.A.N.  Flour  is  rated  very  high  there,  it  seems  to  me ;  but  then  he  has 
possibly  given  the  retail  prices. 

Mr.  Coffin.  The  "  Haxall"  llour  is  probably  here  given. 

The  Chairman.  That  llour  is  not  in  general  use.  That  which  we  use  at  our  works 
is  the  New  York  State  superfine  flour.  It  is  a  grade  -which  we  buy  now  at  a  little  less 
thae  $5  a  barrel,  and  we  buy  pork  at  8  cents  a  pound.  It  is  incredible,  but  we  are 
doing  it. 

Mr.  Coffin.  From  this  exhiliit  we  see  that  so  far  as  labor  in  Massachusetts  is  con- 
cerned the  increase  of  earnings  since  1860  is  24.4  per  cent,  and  the  increase  of  expense 
14.5  per  cent.;  this  on  a  basis  of  sixty  hours  per  week  against  .seventy-six  and  one-half 
hours  per  week  in  1860. 

The  Chairm.\n  snggested  the  propriety  of  some  such  revision  of  the  figures  just  read 
as  would  show  more  definitely  the  facts  which  they  purported  to  substantiate.  As  a 
case  in  point,  he  referred  to  the  matter  of  sugar,  npou  which  in  1860  there  was  a  very 
low  tariff,  while  now  we  have  a  very  high  taritf ;  the  effect  of  this  upon  the  price  and 
necessarily  npon  the  expense  of  living  to  the  workiugman,  being  one  of  the  points 
which  required  more  explicit  demonstration. 

Mr.  Coffin.  I  concur  fully  in  the  suggestion. 

The  .showing  here  given  is  based  upon  sixty  hours  per  week  as  against  seventy-six 
and  a  half  hours  in  1860. 

In  this  connection  I  give  a  statement  taken  from  the  Charleston  News  and  Courier 
of  January  8,  in  regard  to  prices  in  that  city  and  the  effect  of  resumption.  It  is  as 
follows  :  "The  United  States  is  now  standing  on  a  gold  basis,  and  every  transaction 
measured  by  that.  To  this  the  country  has  been  tending  for  three  or  four  years. 
On  January  1,  18/8,  in  Charleston,  a  pound  of  bacon,  a  pound  of  lard,  a  bushel  of  corn, 
a  pound  of  sugar,  a  gallon  of  molasses,  a  pound  of  coffee,  a  bushel  of  salt,  a  pound  of 
rice,  and  a  barrel  of  flour,  bought  at  wholesale  prices,  cost  altogether  $7.31.  These 
same  things  can  be  bought  to-day  for  .S5..55.  The  reduction  is  J4  per  cent.  That  is, 
every  dollar  now  earned  goes  as  far  in  buying  necessaries  of  life  as  a  dollar  and  a 
quarter  went  a  year  ago.  Wherever  wages  have  not  been  reduced  since  last  January, 
they  who  earn  them  are  really  getting  a  fourth  as  much  more  as  they  were  get- 
ling  then." 

Referring  again  to  New  England,  we  find  that  in  1845  farm  hands  received  ten  dol- 
lars per  month,  with  board  in  summer,  and  lived  in  enforced  idleness  in  winter.  In 
1878  they  received  from  sixteen  dollars  to  eighteen  dollars  per  month,  with  board, 
though  they  had  not,  probably,  much  more  to  do  in  the  winter  season  now  than  they 
h  id  in  1845. 

Mr.  Rice.  In  many  sections  they  are  kept  working  in  the  winter  upon  the  bottoming 
of  chairs  and  in  many  other  kinds  of  labor  sent  out  from  the  factories.  The  shoe  busi- 
ness also  is  carried  on  more  extensivelj'  in  the  winter  than  in  the  suunuer. 

Mr.  Coffin.  The  shoe  busine.ss  is  spasmodic.  The  hands  have  more  work  in  the 
iR"inter  than  in  the  summer,  as  a  rule,  I  think. 

1  wjsh  to  call  attention  to  the  fact  that  no  farmer.  East  or  West,  could  now  afford  to 
pay  to  a  laborer  who  can  only  use  his  muscles  even  such  wages  as  he  could  afford  to 
pay  in  1845.  The  crop  would  cost  too  nuich  to  export,  too  much  to  be  freely  n.sed  at 
home.  In  point  of  fact  he  does  pay  more  wages  per  day,  which  shows  that  the  demand 
for  laV)or  has  not  fallen  off;  he  raises  each  bushel  of  grain  at  a  less  cost  for  labor.  Ma- 
chinery enables  him  to  reconcile  these  two  conditious. 

The  complaints  of  distress  that  reach  this  committee  come  from  laborers ;  but  there 
is  another  class  in  the  community  who  have  not  asked  for  relief,  whose  distress  is 
quite  as  great  as  that  of  those  who  ask  that  the  government  shall  give  them  employ- 
ment.    I  refer  to  that  large  class,  made  up  in  a  great  degree  of  womeu,  who  have  seen 

2  cor 


18 

their  afcunmlatt'd  earnings  swept  away  by  courts  of  insolvency  or  oi)euly  repudiated 
by  Ko\ereiyn  States.  It  Ih  hard  to  conceive  of  any  conilition  more  unfortunate  thau 
that  of  the  men  and  women  wiio,  without  any  fault  of  their  own,  relyinjj  on  the  pro- 
tection <>ivtn  by  law  to  de])ositors  in  trust  companies  and  savings  banks,  lind  tiiat  the 
laws  are  ]»owerless  to  protect  them  from  the  losses  inflicted  upon  them ;  of  those  who, 
with  implicit  confidence  in  the  pledges  of  municipalities,  hud  that  they  have  no  re 
dress  ujiou  default  of  jjayment ;  aiul  of  those  who,  relying  ujjou  the  honor  and  integ- 
rity of  sovereign  States,  upon  the  guarantees  of  legislatures,  the  signatures  of  governors 
and  tieasurer-,  discover  ultimately  that  State  honor  is  but  a  synonym  for  repudiation. 
Mr.  Kick.  You  are  lefening  now  to  that  class  of  people  who  have  accumulated  a 
little  money. 

Mr.  CoFiiN.  Yes,  sir  ;  I  am  referring  to  those  who  have  saved  a  little.     The  reason 
why  I  introduce  it  is  that,  while  one  class  complains  of  distress,  there  is  another  class 
which,  it  seems  to  me,  are  e<iually  di8tresse<l,  from  whom  I  have  not  heard  any  com- 
plaint. . 
Mr.  EiCE.  They  make  complaints  also. 

Mr.  Coi'TiN.  They  have  not  made  their  comi)laints  to  this  committee,  I  ju'esurae. 
The  CliAiK.MAX.  We  have  comi)hiints  from  all  (luarters.  J5ut  I  think  we  have  not 
had  brought  before  us  in  a  tabulated  form  the  evil  caused  by  the  enormous  accumu- 
lation of  corporation  and  State  debts;  that  is  to  say,  the  exactions  which  such  debts 
make  upon  incomes,  especially  fixed  incomes,  in  order  to  meet  the  taxes  levied  thereon. 
I  do  not  think  that  that  has  been  brought  out  as  it  ought  to  have  been. 

Mr.  Coffin  (resuming).  What  is  the  result?  Capital  folds  it  arms  and  waits,  while 
labor,  with  nothing  to  live  upon,  looks  in  vain  for  remunerative  employment.  • 

The  Chaikman.  Your  whole  grgnment  up  to  this  point  has  been  to  show  that  there 
has  been  more  occupation  and  employment  for  labor  latterly  thau  ever  before,  has  it 
not? 

Mr.  CoFF'iN.  Y'es,  sir;  not,  of  course,  taking  any  one  year,  but  a  series  of  years  or  an 
average  year.     But  capital  does  not  go  into  new  enterprises.     It  simjily  goes  on  iu  its 
old  enterprises  at  a  slow  rate.     I  think  you  will  find  very  few  new  enterprises  starting. 
The  Chairman.  Y'ou  mean  to  say  that  there   is  an  indisposition  to  invest  in  new 
directions. 
Mr.  Coffin.  Y'es,  sir. 
The  Chairman.  We  admit  that. 

Mr.  Coffin  (resuming).  Let  nie  call  your  attention  to  the  fact  that  repudiation  by 
States  and  municipalities  is  a  boomerang,  which  comes  back  to  inflict  a  blow  upon 
labor;  and  that  nothing  can  be  more  detrimental  to  the  interests  of  labor  thau  to 
make  capital  insecure.  Now,  Mr.  Chairman,  what  has  been  made  manifest  by  this 
review  ?  It  seems  to  me  that  the  apparent  results  may  be  summed  up  under  the  fol- 
lowing heads: 

First.  That  the  earnings  of  to-day  are  from  40  to  60  percent,  greater  than  they  were 
in  1830,  and  24  per  cent,  greater  than  in  bStiO. 

Second.  That  the  cost  of  living  in  Ifr'TB  is  but  14  per  cent,  in  excess  of  what  it  was 
in  1860. 

Third.  That  the  Itavhigs  of  to-day  are  immeasurably  greater  than  the  havings  of  1830, 
and  far  greater  than  in  IStiO. 

Fourth.  That  the  mass  of  the  people  are  better  fed,  clothed,  housed,  and  in  posses- 
sion of  more  of  the  comforts  of  life  thau  at  any  other  i)eriod  of  the  world's  history. 

Fifth.  That  this  change  has  been  brought  about  by  the  development  of  the  forces 
of  nature  through  discovery,  invention,  the  use  of  machinery,  and  the  harmonious 
working  of  capital  and  labor. 

Sixth.  That  capital  and  labor,  instead  of  being  antagonized,  are  naturally  helpful 
to  each  other;  and  that  any  conflict  between  them  is  brought  about  by  elements  that 
are  beyond  the  control  of  either  acting  separately. 

Seventh.  That  there  are  four  such  elements:  discovery,  invention,  fashion,  destruc- 
tion. 

Eighth.  That  there  must  be  an  equalization  between  production,  distribution,  and 
consumption. 

Ninth.  That  at  present  the  facilities  for  production  are  far  greater  than  our  facilities 
for  distribution. 

The  Chairman.  What  do  you  mean  by  "distribution" — the  distribution  of  the  (fom- 
modities  or  the  distribution  of  the  proceeds  of  labor? 
Mr.  Coffin.  I  mean  the  distribution  of  counnodities. 

The  Chairman.  Do  you  mean  to  say  that  we  cannot  distribute  our  commodities  as 
rapidly  as  we  can  produce  them  1 

Mr.  Coffin.  I  mean  that  we  cannot  reach  a  large  enough  area  ;  I  mean  that  the 
depression  of  to-day,  the  stagnation  of  business,  is  for  want  of  a  market. 

The  CiiAiR.viAN.  That  is  one  thing,  and  whether  the  people  have  the  ability  to  buy 
is  another.  But  you  allege  a  want  of  facilities  of  distriljutiou,  and  I  was  going  to  ask 
you,  Have  we  uot  railroads  enough  to-day ;  have  we  not  an  ocean  and  ships  enough  ? 


19 

Mr.  CoKi  IX.  I  do  not  think  I  have  made  clear  the  point  that  1  wished  to  present. 
It  was  this,  that  there  is  a  worhl  ontside  of  our  own  country  which  we  have  not 
reached  yet,  and  that  our  facilities  for  distribution  do  not  enable  us  to  reacli  that. 

The  Chaihman.  Let  us  see  whether  our  facilities  of  distribution  do  not  enable  us  to 
reach  it.     Have  we  not  an  ocean  ! 

Mr.  Coi'Kix.  Yes,  sir. 

The  CiiAiKMAN.  Is  there  any  trouble  in  getting  ships  to  go  to  foreign  ports? 

Mr.  CoKFiN.  A  good  deal  of  trouble  to  reach  some  ports. 

The  CiiAiKMAX.  What  is  it. 

Mr.  Coi-'FiN.  It  arises,  in  part,  from  the  fact  that  steamships  have  superseded  sailing- 
vessels,  and  we  have  no  steam  marine. 

The  CiiAimiAX.  Do  you  not  know  that  our  ports  are  open  :  that  all  the  shipping  re- 
quired is  in  existence,  and  is  to-day  lying  idle  for  the  want  of  business  ?  The  ocean 
Hues  are  anxiously  looking  for  freight,  but  we  cannot  adequately  supply  them  with 
business. 

Mr.  Coffin.  We  can  find  steamships  enough  to  ply  between  this  country  and 
England,  but  I  will  bring  up  in  reply  the  argument  which  has  been  frequently  made 
in  advocacy  of  a  steamship  line  to  Brazil.  English  steamers  will  take  a  cargo  of 
goods  from  Liveri)ool  to  Brazil,  a  cargo  of  cotfee  from  Brazil  to  New  Orleans,  a  cargo 
of  cotton  from  that  port  to  Liverpool,  but  on  no  account  will  they  take  a  cargo  of 
American  products  back  to  Brazil,  even  at  higher  rates  than  to  Liverpool,  for  upon  the 
whole  it  is  not  for  their  interest. 

The  Chairman.  Your  answer  does  not  meet  the  point.  The  reason  why  a  line  has 
not^been  established  is  that  there  are  not  freights  enough  for  it. 

Mr.  Rice.  Assuming  that  the  freight  at  this  end  would  be  sufficient  to  meet  proba- 
ble requirements,  the  ((uestion  would  be  what  profitable  disposition  could  be  made  of 
the  freight  when  it  reached  the  other  end. 

The  Chairman.  There  was  no  market  there  for  our  goods,  for  the  reason  that  our 
own' were  undersold  in  the  market  there  by  British  goods;  and  the  reason  was  per- 
fectly obvious  in  the  fact  that  we  taxed  our  raw  material  and  then  carried  the  prod- 
uct to  Brazil  to  compete  there  with  a  nation  which  did  not  impose  a  tax  on  raw  mate- 
rials. If,  therefore,  you  refer  to  the  abolition  of  our  shipping  as  one  evidence  of  a  lack 
of  facilities  of  distribution,  you  are  in  error.  When  you  say  it  is  because  of  the  want 
of  a  market,  I  agree  with  you.  If  you  will  point  me  to  any  agency  of  distribution 
that  is  defective,  I  will  be  glad  to  agree  with  you  as  to  that. 

Mr.  Coffin.  The  question  of  tariff  and  free  trade  is  so  wide,  that  you  can  hardly 
expect  me  to  enter  upon  it  in  this  connection  ;  but  the  fact  remains  that,  from  some 
cause,  we  do  not  have  a  foreign  market  for  our  products.  What  I  wish  to  say  is  that 
the  American  manufacturer  has  not  such  facilities  for  distribution  as  his  competitor 
across  the  Atlantic.  The  British  Government,  by  its  system  of  ocean  postal  service, 
reaches  every  country  with  its  steamers,  giving  constant  facilities  to  the  merchant  and 
manufacturer.  The  American  manufacturer  has  no  such  facilities  for  distribution, 
and  I  do  not  see  how  he  can  find  a  market.  England  aids  her  manuf  ncturers  through 
her  postal  service.  Our  government  does  nothing  of  the  sort.  But  I  think  that  is  not 
the  only,  perhaps  not  the  greatest,  difficulty.  To  go  no  further,  there  are  consumers 
unsupplied  in  every  house  in  Mexico  and  South  America.  The  manufacturers  of  this 
country  are  capable  of  producing  enough  to  supply  them.  So  far  as  cost  of  manu- 
facture is  concerned  no  one  can  do  it  more  cheaply.  Mechanical  skill  has  furnished 
and  is  ready  to  furnish  every  physical  appliance  for  communication  and  transporta- 
tion. It  is  the  business  of  the  merchant  to  place  that  product  at  that  consumer's  house, 
and  he  does  not  do  it.  Whether  it  is  because  he  lacks  skill  and  enterprise  or  because 
the  laws  are  unfavorable  to  trade  I  will  not  discuss.  I.t  is  enough  to  say  that  the  fault 
does  not  rest  with  the  manufacturer  or  the  machine  builder.  It  is  the  same  with  regard 
to  interna]  commerce.  The  cost  of  manufacture  is,  in  general,  very  small  as  compared 
with  the  increase  of  price  that  comes  in  between  the  factory  and  the  consumer.  We 
must  find  some  way  of  improving  this  wasteful  and,  therefore,  imperfect  method  of 
distribution. 

Tenth.  I  state,  as  the  tenth  in  order  of  the  series  of  results  shown,  that  the  laws  of 
progress  will  ever  require  a  readjustment  of  labor;  that  discovery,  iuvention,  and 
fashion  will  ever  force  men  to  abandon  their  old  and  seek  new  occupations. 

Eleventh.  That  every  advance  in  inventions  will  demand  a  higher  degree  of  intel- 
ligence, requiring  a  higher  education. 

Twelfth.  That  men  must  accommodate  themselves  to  the  laws  of  progress  or  be 
crushed  by  them.  Let  me  not  be  misunderstood  on  this  point.  The  laws  which  un- 
derlie progress  are  physical.  No  legislative  enactment  can  alter,  amend,  or  stop  their 
working,  and  any  attempt  to  accomplish  such  an  end  by  any  such  means  would  be  as 
futile  as  wcmld  be  that  of  attempting  to  protect  from  injury  a  man  who  happens  to 
stand  in  the  way  of  the  thunderbolt.  I  assert  with  emphasis,  that  under  these  laws 
labor  will  ever  be  compelled  to  seek  new  employment  and  that  capital  will  ever  see 
itself  annihilated. 


20 

UikUt  flic  lU'w  civilization  there  lias  l)rcn  a  l)i<^ljor  piano  of  living.  We  are  not 
contint  now  willi  wliat  safislicd  n«  in  former  days.  I'liere  liaH  been  also  a  develop- 
ment of  humanitarian  sentiment.  Man  i.s  more  than  an  animal;  he  ninst  do  more 
than  simj>ly  exist.  I  am  glad  that  it  is  so.  I  am  glad  that  men  in  the  lower  strata  of 
.society  are  not  satisfied  Avith  things  as  they  are,  bnt  are  reaching  out  after  something 
liigher  and  better.  The  idea  that  men  must  have  more  than  bare  existence  has  so 
permeated  society  that  penal,  reformatory,  and  charitable  institutions  now  have  cora- 
lorts  that  were  unheard  of  a  half  century  ago.  Mr.  Houamy  I'riee*  states  that  it  has 
been  ofdcially  announced  that  the  present  cost  of  maintaining  one  thousand  paupers 
in  London  is  live  times  greater  than  it  was  in  1815;  The  15ritish  blue-book  shows 
the  advance  made  since  l8(V.i.  In  the  table  already  given  we  saw  that  the  total 
number  of  persons  relieved  in  England  in  IHd:}  was  i,142,()'<i4,  at  a  cost  of  £(),.'')27,0:^6. 
That  was  at  the  rate  of  .'f'J8..'jO  i)er  individual,  reckoning  $'y  to  the  pound  ;  whereas  iu 
lfc78  the  number  relieved  was  74-2,70:{,  at  a  cost  of  £7,400,'JG(),  at  the  rate  of  $49.50. 
In  Scotland  the  number  relieved  in  I8i')'.i  was  120,284,  at  a  cost  of  .$:50..")5  i)er  person; 
while  in  187G  the  number  was  U<j,404,  at  a  cost  of  $44.60  per  i)erson.  In  Ireland  iu 
18fi:?  the  number  relieved  was  (5{),228,  at  a  cost  of  .$52.90  ]>er  person  ;  while  in  187(5  the 
number  relieved  was  85,330.  at  a  cost  of  $(i5.11  i)er  individual. 

It  is  evident  that  the  diiterences  do  not  arise  from  any  corresponding  increase  in 
the  jtrice  cf  provisions;  and  I  think  it  is  equally  clear  that  they  do  arise  from  the 
increase  of  articles  now  regarded  as  necessary  to  human  comfort. 

We  have  seen  the  bank  circulation  increased  from  $5.77  per  individual  in  1630  to 
$18.14  iu  1874.  With  increase  of  production  there  was  increase  of  consumption.  We 
issued  promises  to  pay,  and  purchased  our  carriages  and  pianos  and  pictures,  and  went 
on  till  prudence  became  improvidence.  We  took  it  for  granted  that  things  were  to  go 
on  just  as  they  were  going.  We  became  extravagant  in  everything  ;  rich  and  poor 
alike  lived  up  to  and  beyond  their  means.  To-day  we  are  compelled  to  study  econ- 
omy, to  deny  ourselves  things  that  we  formerly  enjoyed,  and  hence  the  widesj)read 
restlessness  and  discontent,  and  hence  the  appeal  to  Congress  to  give  emi^loyment  to 
the  unemployed. 

I  need  not  enter  upon  the  question  of  the  power  of  Congress  in  the  premises.  I  have 
only  this  to  say  in  connection,  that  any  restriction  of  the  hours  of  labor;  the  removal 
of  the  poor  of  the  cities  to  farms;  the  coustructicm  of  public  works  that  are  not  needed 
will  not  give  any  permanent  relief.  If  the  government  has  works  that  need  to  be 
carried  on,  very  well,  let  them  go  on ;  but  it  is  just  as  wise  to  employ  men  to  remain 
idle  as  it  is  to  employ  them  to  do  that  which  we  do  not  need.  In  any  case  the  tax- 
payers must  foot  the  bill. 

The  CiiAir.MAN.  Suppose  that  in  a  community  there  are  many  families  who  do  not 
want  to  be  idle  and  would  be  glad  to  work  on  the  Western  farms,  who  can  find  no  em- 
ployment here  at  their  own  business,  and  want  to  go  to  the  West — do  you  not  think  it 
would  be  advantageous  to  the  nation  if  those  people  could  be  transferred  from  the 
place  in  which  there  is  no  work  to  a  place  where  there  is  work  ? 

Mr.  Coffin.  I  do,  but  I  do  not  think  it  is  the  province  of  the  government  to  do  that. 

The  Chairmax.  Do  you  mean  to  say  that  the  government  should  not  do  it  because 
the  question  is  a  difficult  one,  or  that  we  should  not  do  it  on  jyolitico-economic  grounds? 

Mr.  Coffin.  I  think  it  is  a  question  of  political  economy. 

The  Chairman.  Do  you  know  that  there  have  been  and  are  at  this  time  governmental 
colonization  schemes,  such  as  this  one,  in  operation  ? 

Mr.  Coffin.  Other  nations  have  put  the  principle  in  operation,  but,  in  so  doing,  they 
have  assumed  to  be  paternal.  Our  owu  government  is  founded  upon  a  principle  the 
reverse  of  that  idea  ;  this  is  a  government  of  the  peo])le. 

The  Chairman  referred,  by  way  of  illustration,  to  the  Canadian  policy  iu  offering 
inducements  for  immigration,  the  effect  of  which  was  apparent  to-day  in  taking  from 
Great  Britain  her  surplus  population.  He  knew  of  no  moral  principle  which  would 
prevent  a  nation  encumbered  with  too  many  bees  in  a  hive  from  assisting,  out  of  the 
accumulated  property  which  all  had  gathered  together,  those  of  its  people  who  were 
willing  and  desirous  to  cultivate  new  lands  and  make  new  homes  within  its  borders. 
The  question  of  constitutional  power  in  the  case  of  our  own  government  was  quite 
another  consideration,  but,  with  reference  alone  to  the  abstract  principle  involved,  he 
failed  to  see  why  the  people  of  a  nation  could  not  be  assi.sted  in  this  way  when,  other- 
wise, they  would  be  compelled  to  stay  at  home  unable  to  produce  an  equivalent  for 
that  which  they  consumed. 

Mr.'CoFFiN.  I  think  that  any  such  scheme,  if  carried  out,  should  be  through  that 
humane  sentiment  of  the  community,  which  manifests  itself  iu  voluntary  contributions 
and  diffuses  anu>ng  men  a  spirit  of  brotherhood. 

The  Chairman.  I  understand  you  to  say  that  it  would  be  better  to  have  it  left  to 
individual  action  rather  than  to  the  government,  because  iu  the  hands  of  the  latter 
it  would  not  be  an  economical  or  wise  mode  of  doing  it. 

*Political  Economy,  page  237. 


21 

Mr.  Coi'Kix.  I  think  it  would  not  lie  a  wise  mode  of  doing  it. 

The  CiiAiKMAX.  But  you  do  not  object  to  its  being  done  ? 

Mr.  CoKFiN.  Not  at  ail.  Under  a  monarchical  form  of  government  it  might  com- 
mend itself  most  forcibly. 

The  CiiAiKMAN  remarked  that  if  the  necessities  of  the  government  were  snch  as  to 
require  a  prompt  decision,  he  inclined  to  the  opinion  that  he  would  not  be  influenced 
bj'  any  consideration  as  to  whether  the  government  was  that  of  a  uujnarchy  or  a  gov- 
ernment of  the  people;  that  if  individual  action  proved  itself  inatle([uate  to  meet  the 
case,  he  would  have  the  government  as-sume  the  resjionsibility,  and  would  deal  with 
the  evil  without  hesitation,  just  as  a  surgeou  would  with  a  disease  which  required  to 
be  wholly  eradicated. 

Mr.  Coffin.  I  have  duly  a  few  suggestions  to  make.  I  wish  to  say  that  I  have  no 
fears  for  the  future  of  American  industry.  I  entertain  a  profound  conviction  that 
America  is  about  to  enter  upon  a  career  of  unparalleled  i)rosi)erity. 

The  Chairman.  I  wish  you  would  make  that  point  clear,  because  I  have  been  criti- 
cised rather  freely  for  expressing  a  similar  oi)inion  in  New  York  a  few  months  ago. 

Mr.  Coffin.  I  will  endeavor  to  do  so  briefly.  In  the  first  place,  America  possesses 
all  the  priuuil  conditions  to  this  end  in  a  degre(f  not  enjoyed  by  any  other  nation.  We 
have  a  continent  to  ourselves,  whereas  Great  Britain  has  a  less  area  than  the  States 
of  Illinois  and  Iowa.  We  have  every  variety  of  soil  and  climate,  with  capacity  to  pro- 
duce breadstutfs  far  beyond  our  own  wants.  We  have  unparalleled  resources  in  the 
forces  and  materials  of  nature,  in  our  rivers,  and  exhaustless  beds  of  coal  and  iron.  Under 
the  fostering  care  of  our  fathers  we  have  encouragement  to  make  iron  and  steel,  steam 
and  water  do  tlie  work  of  human  hands  far  beyond  encouragements  given  by  any  other 
government ;  for  this  country  stimulates  invention  by  its  patent  laws,  securing  to  the 
patentee  the  exclusive  right  to  his  invention  for  a  term  of  years  on  payment  of  $30, 
whereas  in  England  it  used  to  cost  nearly  $\  ,000  to  secure  a  patent.  What  is  the  result? 
In  this  country  the  number  of  patents  taken  out  aggregates  about  thirteen  thousand 
per  annum  against  about  four  thousand  in  England.  We  have  an  army  of  inventors. 
The  result  w;is  seen  at  Paris  last  summer,  where  the  United  States  stood  at  the  head 
in  usef in  inventions. 

Through  the  superiority  of  our  inventions  we  are  beginning  to  secure  an  exjiort 
trade,  which,  though  at  present  is  not  very  large,  is  continually  increasing  and  prom- 
ises to  have  a  very  great  development.  It  is  not  confined  to  one  department  of  in- 
dustry, but  applies  to  all.  , 

The  Chairman.  What  is  to  prevent  the  prompt  introduction  of  imjjroved  machinery 
into  the  other  countries  who  are  the  rivals  of  this  country  ?  They  have  heretofore 
been  slow  to  take  advantage  of  their  opportunities  in  that  respect,  I  admit,  but  the 
indications  are  that  they  are  now  doing  so  very  rapidly. 

Mr.  Coffin.  I  will  answer  that  by  narrating  a  fact  within  my  knowledge.  Year 
before  last,  one  of  the  largest  boot  and  shoe  manufacturers  in  Switzerland,  after  visit- 
ing the  Centennial  Exhibition  and  seeing  our  boot  and  shoe  machinery,  obtained  a  full 
set  of  the  machinery  aiul  took  it  to  Switzerland.  He  found  when  he  got  the  machines 
over  there  that  his  own  workmen  could  not  make  use  of  them,  and  he  was  forced  to 
send  over  to  America  to  procure  American  workmen. 

Tbe  Chairman.  But  how  long  is  that  condition  of  things  likely  to  continue  ?  It  is 
only  a  question  of  a  generation,  I  take  it,  as  to  when  the  people  there  shall  have  ac- 
quired the  facility  of  managing  American  machinery.  The  Swiss  make  watches  of 
the  finest  and  most  intricate  patterns,  and  they  certainly  can  learn  to  make  a  shoe. 

Mr.  Coffin.  We  can  go  ahead  faster  than  they  can  follow.  The  copyist  cannot  sur- 
pass the  thing  copied.  Improvements  that  do  not  form  part  of  a  progress  of  indige- 
nous origin,  improvements  adopted  from  abroad  and  not  continually  fed  from  home 
invention  may  make  a  nation  second,  but  cannot  make  it  flrst.  An  art  maybe  brought 
from  abroad,\and  that  is  the  theory  on  which  protective  tarifl's  rest,  but  it  cannot 
flourish  until  it  has  so  become  part  of  our  life  as  to  get  its  growth  from  within. 

The  Chairman.  But,  as  I  have  said,  the  question  is  only  one  as  to  the  length  of  time 
necessary  to  acquaint  them  with  the  processes  which  at  first  are  necessarily  novel  and 
difficult  to  them.  Take,  for  instance,  the  thousand  little  inventions,  such  as  "  Y'ankee 
notions,"  that  are  produced  out  of  steel.  What  is  to  prevent  the  English,  for  instance, 
from  doing  just  what  we  have  been  doing  ? 

Mr.  Coffin.  There  is  nothing  to  prevent  them,  but  there  are  conditions  which  give 
this  country  the  pre-eminence :  First,  there  are  our  physical  conditions.  F(n-  instance, 
in  the  matter  of  coal,  we  find  it  in  this  country  widely  distributed,  and  by  that  means 
•we  are  enabled  to  start  manufactories  all  over  the  continent.  It  lies  convenient  of 
access  for  that  pur]>ose. 

The  Chairman.  Are  we  any  more  fortunately  situated  in  that  respect  as  compared 
with  England? 

Mr.  Coffin.  Y'es,  sir.     We  do  not  have  to  raise  it  from  so  low  a  level ;  "we  can  pro- 
duce our  coal  cheaper. 
The  Chairman.  That  depends  upon  where  you  go  to  procure  your  coal. 


22 

Mr.  CoKKiK.  From  some  miaes  we  can  procure  it  cheaper;  in  tho^  miues  around 
Cliiittaiiooga,  for  instance. 

The  Chairman.  There  you  get  the  bituminous  coal  at  a  h)W  price  ;  hut  that  is 
very  far  in  the  interior;  and,  in  point  of  convenience  of  access  to  the  seaboard,  I  do 
not  see  what  advantage  it  has  over  the  Welsh  coals,  which  are  produced  as  cheaply  as 
any  coal  in  America. 

Mr.  Coriix.  Then  we  have  exhaustless  quantities  of  iron;  but  I  will  not  enter  into 
that  matter.  I  will  take  cotton  as  better  illustrating  the  point.  To-day,  I  suppose, 
about  2  per  cent,  of  the  cotton  lands  of  the  country  are  under  cultivation.  By  the 
report  of  the  commission  of  Parliament,  made,  I  think,  in  187.i  (and  which  is  found 
in  the  Parliamentary  reports),  the  statement  is  made,  in  regt^rd  to  the  cotton  supply, 
that  at  least  OU  per  rent,  of  the  raw  material  of  Great  Britain  must  ever  come  from 
the  United  States.  Last  year  the  amount  was  67  per  cent.,  and  the  yearly  aggregate 
has  been  constantly  increasing.  It  has  been  shown  by  our  manufacturers  that  it  costs 
about  five  dollars  to  take  a  bale  of  cotton  from  a  cotton-field  in  the  South  and  place  it 
in  England.  I  look  forward  to  the  time  when,  in  the  South  as  well  as  in  New  England, 
there  will  be  a  large  development  of  cotton  manufactures,  e8i)ecially  of  the  coarser 
([ualities  of  the  goods  and  cotton-yarn.  Of  those  who  buy  cotton  cloths,  the  average 
in  the  market  of  the  world  to-day  is  about  twenty  yards  for  an  individual. 

The  CUAIHMAX.  For  the  whole  world  ? 

Mr.  CoFFix.  That  is  the  average  among  tho,se  who  purchase  ;  about  twenty  yards 
per  annum  would  be  required  for  each  individual.  It  is  stated  that  not  more  than 
live  hundred  million  of  the  people  on  the  globe. are  now  using  machine-made  cotton. 
Those  engaged  in  manufacturing  confidently  expect  that  the  time  is  not  far  distant 
when  at  least  one  thousand  millions  will  use  cotton  cloth  in  some  form.  There  is  no 
other  fiber  that  can  compare  with  it  in  cheapness.  The  consumption  increases  both  in 
civilized  and  uncivilized  lands.  England  now  has  nearly  all  the  foreign  trade  in  her 
hands. 

The  exports  of  cotton  manufactures  in  187G  were  as  follows  : 

Yaliie. 

Yarn.san(l  twist Pounds..       2:i2,  254,  627      £12,781,733 

Piece  goods Yards . .  2,  fi(!7,  423, 176        l.i7,  271,  400 

Priuted  Kools Yards..       9!t0,  147,278  92,272,310 

Cotton  thread Pounds..  9,635.363  1,763,586 

Cotton  .stockinfTS Doz. pairs..  1,  105,666  364,054 

Mixed  goods,  chiefly  cotton Yards..        11,83.3,900  429,  405 

In  contrast,  our  own  export  was  equivalent  to  only  about  7(),000,000  yards. 

It  is  a  well-known  fact  that  American  cotton  goods  are  superior  in  their  make  to  the 
English  ;  that  English  manufacturers  are  using  American  trade-marks  ;  that  English 
manufacturers  have  carried  "  sizing,"  to  an  extent  vrhich  has  become  prejudicial  ;  that 
their  excuse  is  that  they  cannot  compete  with  American  manufacturers  in  the  making 
of  substantial  goods.  It  seems  to  me  morally  certain  that  we  shall  take  a  portion  of 
the  present  trade  of  England  from  her  hands,  and  that  we  shall  secure  our  fair  share 
of  the  increase. 

On  the  other  side  of  the  globe,  in  China  and  the  other  countries,  there  is  a  popula- 
tion variously  estimated  at  from  two  hundred  and  fifty  to  four  hundred  and  fifty 
millions.  Before  the  war  in  1860,  for  instance,  our  exports  to  China  were  about  four 
million  yards.  England  sent  out  to  China  in  the  same  year  about  thirty-three  thou- 
sand pieces  of  goods  (the  number  of  yards  has  not  been  stated),  and  our  export  was 
larger  than  that  of  England.  The  war  swept  that  trade  entirely  away.  Last  year  we 
sent  out  to  China  eleven  millions  of  yards  and  England  sent  oiit  three  hundred  and 
seventy-eight  millions  of  yards.  That  is  the  beginning  of  a  volume  of  consumption 
■which  has  yet  to  develop  itself  in  China.  That  is  a  trade  which  it  is  possible  for  the 
American  manufacturer  to  obtain  wholly. 

The  Chairm.vx.  Do  you  know  the  rate  of  wages  for  workingmen  in  China? 

Mr.  CoFi'ix.  I  have  not  the  data,  but  I  know  it  is  very  low.  I  know  from  personal 
observation  that  a  very  large  number  of  people  procure  but  a  bare  existence. 

The  Chairman'  was  understood  to  remark  that  on  the  plains  in  China  the  rate  (meas- 
ured by  the  money  of  the  United  States)  was  a  little  over  two  cents  a  day.  [To  Mr. 
Coffin.]  Do  you  know  anything  about  the  facility  with  which  the  Chinese  workmen 
learn  to  do  anything  that  our  people  do? 

Mr.  CoFFix.  Yes,  sir.     They  are  exceedingly  imitative. 

The  Chairmax.  Do  you  not  foresee  that  when  the  demand  of  the  Chinese  for  cottdn 
goods  has  been  largely  increased  they  will  utilize  their  facilities  for  the  manufacture 
of  cotton  ? 

Mr.  CoFFix.  I  do  not. 

The  Chairmax.  Why  not  ? 

Mr.  Coffin.  Because  they  have  not  the  land  for  the  purpose. 

The  Chairmax.  What  would  be  the  cost  of  freight  to  China  on  a  bale  of  cotton 
goods  ? 


23 

Mr.  Coi'iiv.  I  do  not  know  that  the  freight  on  a  bale  of  cotton  would  be  much  less 
than  that  upon  an  equal  weifjht  of  cotton  <;oods. 

The  C'liAiKMAX.  Suppose,  then,  that  when  we  were  about  to  send  them  our  goods 
the  Chinese  would  say,  "We  will  not  take  the  goods;  we  will  take  the  cotton  itself"  ; 
would  not  the  result  be  that  they  would  take  the  cotton  and  make  the  goods  for  less 
money  than  they  would  pay  to  get  the  cotton  ? 

Mr.  Coi'i'iN.  1  do  not  think  that  capital  would  ever  go  to  China  to  make  Chinese 
manufactures. 

The  Chairman.  Will  not  capital  go  where  it  can  make  the  most  money? 

Mr.  Coil  i\.  I  admit  that  it  will  go  where  it  can  make  the  most  money  and  get  it 
home  safely. 

The  CiiAir.MAX  here  remarked  that  in  a  letter  recently  received  by  a  friend  of  his 
from  Mr.  Hague,  the  geologist,  now  engaged  in  China  in  surveying,  the  statement  was 
made  by  that  gentleman  that  he  had  found  on  the. banks  of  a  luivigable  river  a  bed 
of  coal  and  iron  ore  of  the  very  best  quality,  where  labor  was  abundant  at  two  cents 
a  day,  where  the  ]>eople  are  a  strong,  stalwart  race,  capable  of  doing  good  work,  and 
that  there  was  no  difficulty  whatever  in  ))roducing  pig-iron  at  four  dollars  a  ton  in  our 
money.  Under  these  circumstances  he  (the  Chairman)  was  more  a|)prehen8ive  of  dan- 
ger than  sanguine  of  any  i)ossil»ility  of  good  to  us  from  the  <lemanil  that  was  likely  to 
come  from  the  direction  indicated  :  for  when  the  market  in  China  was  once  opened 
we  would  be  confronted  with  four  hundred  millions  of  i)eople  who  could  live  at  a  cost 
of  one-tenth  of  that  paid  by  our  own  people,  and  who  were  quite  as  capable  and  in- 
telligent as  our  own.  We  saw  there  a  race  of  people  who  had  learned  to  live  upon  so 
much  less  and  learned  to  do  so  much  more,  comparatively  with  our  own  peoph^,  and 
where  all  the  conditions  for  the  manufacture  of  raw  material  were  as  favorable  or 
more  favorable  than  they  were  in  any  other  place  in  the  world. 

^Ir.  CoiFix.  That  is,  of  the  raw  material  on  hand. 

The  Chaiumax.  No  ;  but  of  the  raw  material  that  may  be  imported.  The  dirterence 
in  freight  is  so  small  that  a  bale  of  cotton  could  go,  I  believe,  at  as  low  a  rate  as  could 
a  bale  of  goods;  and  if  that  is  the  case,  there  is  nothing  to  prevent  the  Chinese  from 
working  up  the  raw  material  which  thej'  have  purchased  from  you  atul  competing 
with  you  in  the  sale  of  your  domestic  manufactures. 

Mr.  JoxES.  Nevertheless,  Mr.  Chairman,  we  would  get  the  value  of  the  bale  of  cotton. 

Mr.  EiCE.  You  will  sell  the  cotton,  but  we  will  not  make  the  cloth. 

Mr.  JoxES.  Then  so  far  as  the  interests  of  the  South  alone  are  concerned  we  would 
be  benetited  in  securing  a  new  nn^rket  for  our  cotton. 

The  Chairmax.  Of  cotirse  you  of  the  South  would  not  be  injured,  but  I  want  to 
know  where  we,  who  make  the  cloth,  are  to  come  out. 

Mr.  CoFi-'iN\  I  think  it  will  be  a  long  time  before  we  are  called  upon  to  compete  with 
the  Chinese  in  cotton  manufactures.     They  are  imitative,  but  not  progressive. 

The  Chairmax'.  It  may  be  a  long  time  coming,  but  it  may  come. 

Mr.  Coffin.  There  is  one  element  in  connection  with  the  subject  of  progress  in  China 
to  which  I  would  like  to  allude  here.  The  Chinese  religion  is  a  barrier  to  progress. 
You  go  to  China  and  you  tiud  it  a  vast  graveyard.  The  resting  places  of  the  dead  in 
that  country  are  kept  with  reverential  care.  The  people  worship  their  ancestors,  and  they 
entertain  the  belief  that  their  ancestors  in  the  spirit  world  need  the  same  things  there 
that  they  needed  when  they  were  in  this  world.  You  will  find,  as  you  go  along  the 
streets,  day  by  day,  baskets  hung  out  on  the  fronts  of  thehouses  as  receptacles  in  which 
the  people  place  their  offerings  for  the  beuetit  of  the  departed.  They  fashion  their  gifts 
after  such  patterns  as  will  be  most  likely  to  indicate  the  particular  employment  which 
was  followed  by  the  departed  in  this  life.  They  are  made  of  paper,  and  may  be  a  boat, 
may  be  a  hoe,  or  any  other  implement;  maybe  an  article  of  clothing.  These  otierings  are 
finally  all  gathered  together  and  burned,  and  the  popular  belief  is,  of  course,  that  with 
the  burning  they  go  into  the  s])irit-world  and  the  spirits  have  the  benefit  of  them. 
Then.agaiin,  a  Chinaman,  before  sitting  down  to  his  table  to  dinner,  takes  his  food 
into  the  ancestral  hall  (in  which  tablets  are  arranged  around  in  commemoration  of  his 
ancestors),  and  there  he  otters  his  prayers,  burns  his  joss-sticks,  and  implores  his  an- 
cestors to  partake  of  the  food.  He  believes  that  if  he  neglects  any  of  the.se  devotions 
Tiis  ancestors  will  punish  hiui  through  reverses  in  his  business  or  in  other  ways.  My 
own  belief  is  that  so  long  as  China  in  its  religion  is  wedded  to  these  superstitions,  it 
will  make  but  little  progress  in  the  way  of  adapting  itself  to  modern  improvements. 
I  remember  that  when  I  was  in  that  country,  on  one  occasion,  I  went  with  a  geutle- 
•man  through  the  city  of  Shanghai,  and  that  when  we  came  to  the  north  gate  we 
passed  through  and  came  to  a  wall  built  almost  directly  across  the  highway.  We  were 
obliged  to  pass  around  and  get  l)ehind  this  wall  in  order  to  proceed.  I  asked  my  com- 
panion what  was  the  meaning  of  that  wall,  supposing  it  was  intended  for  a  defense, 
thongh  it  was  very  curiously  constructed.  He  explained  that  the  wall  was  the  Fung 
Shuey  (the  meaning  of  which  is  good  and  bad  influences),  and  that  it  was  erected  to 
prevent  the  bad  spirits  coming  from  the  north  from  going  any  farther.  It  was  popu- 
larly supposed  that  those  bad  spirits  always  came  from  the  north,  and  that  they 


24 

always  caine  in  a  straight  line;  that  they  eoiihl  not  tnrn  at  a  right  angh;,  and  that 
therefore  tuis  wall  stopped  their  farther  progress,  lie  informed  nie  that  almost  tha 
entire  litigation  arising  in  China  was  because  of  this  Fang  JShney-  If  a  man  bnilt  a 
house  which  would  keep  out  from  his  neighbor  the  gooil  in(lnenc(!s  which  came  from 
the  south,  or  which  would  admit  the  bad  inlluences  coming  from  the  north,  his  neigh- 
bor would  go  to  law  aliout  it.  That  is  the  reason  why  the  1<'legraith  line  was  cut 
down  between  Woosung  and  Shanghai ;  it  interlVred  with  the  Fung  SIniey.  The  rea- 
son why  the  railroads  cannot  come  in  there  is  because  it  is  supposed  that  their  iuflu- 
euce  disturbs  the  graves  of  the  dead,  and  that  the  eH'ectof  their  introduction  will  be 
to  bring  disaster,  trouble,  and  sickness  to  the  whole  country.  My  friend  informed  me 
that  the  opposition  to  railroads  was  predicated  upon  the  belief  that  they  would  dis- 
turb the  entire  religious  sentiment  of  the  empire. 

The  C'liAiRMA.v.  Sup|iose,  Mr.  CoHin,  you  were  carried  back  to  the  middle  ages  in 
Europe  (which  have  been  approiiriately  called  "the  dark  ages"),  when  there  was  but 
one  church — you  know  what  the  intluence  of  the  church  is  supposed  to  have  been — 
when  all  progress  is  supposed  to  have  ceased  for  a  thousand  years.  Is  there  anything 
in  the  tone  of  the  Chinese  polity  that  is  any  more  repressive  of  progressive  influences 
than  was  the  domination  of  the  church  then  ? 

Mr.  CoFFix.  It  is  not  merely  the  Chinese  polity;  it  is  the  character  of  the  Chinese 
peoi)le.  They  are  more  cultivated,  more  cizilized  in  a  material  sense,  than  the  west- 
ern Europeans  of  A.  1).  ICOO ;  but  they  have  not  that  spirit  which  led  to  the  crusades 
and  which  covered  the  land  with  cathedrals.  The  church  repressed  an  active  spirit 
"which  liually  overcame  it.  In  China  the  obstacle  to  progress  is  in  the  people  and  not 
in  the  government.  But  if  we  have  two  hundred  to  look  forward  to,  that  is  enough. 
I  can  hardly  compare  the  two  epo&hs  and  people  enough  to  give  a  ])recise  opinion. 

The  Chairman.  Yet  it  is  a  matter  upon  which  we  may  readily  base  an  opinion. 
\Yhy  may  not  a  new  era  in  religion  be  introduced  into  China  with  the  new  forces  Uhat 
accompany  such  modern  appliances  as  railroads  and  telegraphs'/  To  a  man  looking 
back  from  the  standpoint  of  to-day,  the  prospect  would  certainly  appear  a  very  hope- 
less one  that  Europe  would  ever  emerge  from  the  obscurity  of  the  middle  ages;  yet 
the  world  has  come  out  of  it  very  bravely. 

Mr.  Coi'Fix.  I  suppose  that  China  will,  eventualiy,  come  out  of  her  religious  dark- 
ness, but  I  do  not  expect  to  see  it  in  my  own  lifetime. 

The  CiiAii'.MAX.  A  lifetime  is  comparatively  a  short  period.  Of  course  we  are  all 
looking  ahead  to  the  prospect  of  such  a  I'esult.  I  agree  with  you  that  this  country 
will  get  rid  of  her  present  difSculties  at  an  early  date.  There  is  more  labor 
unoccupied  te-day  than  there  was  when  the  panic  came  upon  us,  but  its  pres- 
ence is  not  so  apparent,  because  the  country  has  grown,  and  the  necessities  which 
are  incidental  to  its  expansion  have  given  employment  to  additional  labor;  conse* 
quently,  there  is  not  so  large  a  surplus  of  unemployed  labor  as  there  was  at  that  time. 
The  difticulty  is  but  a  temiiorary  one;  but,  in  looking  ahead,  I  appreciate  the  fact 
that  all  the  world  has  yet  to  face  this  fact,  that  population  will  finally  grow  up  to  the 
limit  of  the  means  of  subsistence.  That  is  the  tendency.  The  reasons  presented  to 
this  committee  by  the  reformers,  the  gentlemen  who  have  presented  grievances  here, 
are  that  there  has  not  been  a  proper  distribution  of  the  fruits  of  human  industry; 
that  some  men  can  get  too  much  and  others,  quite  as  deserving,  get  none  at  all. 
That  is  the  i)roblem  which  they  present  to  us.  If  you  can  throw  any  light  upon  that, 
as  you  have  reached  the  end  of  your  lucid  statement,  you  will  be  conferring  a  benefit 
upon  the  committee,  and  upon  the  country  as  well,  and  we  would  be  glad  to  hear  any 
suggestions  that  may  occur  to  you  at  this  time  on  that  point. 

Mr.  CoFFix.  The  condition  that  you  have  indicated  has  always  been  the  condition 
of  the  human  race.  There  always  have  been  rich  people  and  poor  people,  and  there 
always  will  be.  Some  men  can  make  money  and  some  cannot.  All  who  have  the  abil- 
ity to  earn  have  not  the  ability  to  accumulate.  It  is  a  question  of  natural  condition. 
No  legislative  action  ever  will  change  those  conditions.  When  the  Saviour  of  the  world 
said  "  the  poor  ye  have  with  you  always,  and  when  ye  will  ye  may  do  them  good,"  he 
uttered  an  eternal  truth.  I  do  not  see  how  there  can  ever  be  a  complete  solution  of 
the  question.  I  mean  by  that,  I  do  not  see  how  it  is  possible  for  society  to  exist  with- 
out a  difference  in  condition,  but  I  fully  believe  that  as  the  years  roll  on  wealth  will 
be  more  generally  dittused,  that  the  poor  will  be  better  cared  for  and  will  have  more 
of  the  comforts  of  life.  I  think  that  I  have  shown  that  the  tendency  of  the  new  civili- 
zation is  in  that  direction.  The  moral  and  Christian  sentiment  of  the  world  lead  in  that 
direction,  but  Christian  and  moral  sentiment  cannot  set  aside  the  physical  conditions 
under  which  the  Almighty  has  created  human  beings,  nor  the  physical  laws  with  which 
he  has  surrounded  them.  Many  things  can  be  done  to  reduce  poverty  to  a  minimum. 
Education  maybe  an  aid;  so  may  charity,  temperance,  and  legislative  enactment; 
but  all  of  them  never  will  absolutely  abolish  poverty  from  the  world,  for  there  are  con- 
ditions and  influences  beyond  the  control  of  all  these  ameliorative  agencies  that  will 
make  some  men  rich  and  others  poor. 

The  Chairmax.  Suppose  that  when  monopolies  tend  to  give  those  who  control  them 


25 

a  larger  price  than  they  would  otherwise  be  able  to  get,  legislation,  yon  say,  cannot 
alter  that.  If  we  have  a  monopoly  in  any  form  disguised  in  our  legislation,  ought  we 
not  to  eradicate  it  at  once  ? 

Mr.  Coi'FiN.  That  is  another  and  quite  a  different  point.  It  is  the  duty  of  the  legis- 
lator to  protect  every  man  in  his  rights,  to  see  that  no  man  who  may  hold  a  monopoly 
shall  have  the  power  to  oppress  you  or  any  other  man  in  his  natural  rights. 

The  Cn.viitMAX.  Yes;  but  that  is  only  groping  in  the  dark  after  all.  WTiat  is  law 
and  legislation  but  the  restriction  of  people.in  what  may  be  called  their  natural  rights  ? 
The  natural  rights  of  one  man  interfere  with  the  natural  rights  of  another  man.  Mr. 
Rice  and  I  may  go  into  and  settle  upon  some  unoccupied  territory,  and  each  may  lay  claim 
to  a  particular  tract  that  is  more  desirable  than  any  other  tract  because  of  the  presence 
of  water  or  something  else.  We  get  to  fighting  about  our  claim,  and  the  law  steps  in  or 
society  steps  in  and  establishes  a  rule  by  which  his  natural  right  and  my  natural  right 
are  subordinated  to  some  general  law.  Therefore,  when  you  say  that  no  mau  can  inter- 
fere with  your  natural  rights,  I  answer  that  every  mau  can  interfere  with  your  natu- 
ral rights  under  the  law. 

Mr.  CoFi'iN.  Take  the  case  of  tbe  railroads,  for  instance. 

The  Chairman.  We  will  take  the  case  of  the  railroads  as  you  suggest.  The  allega- 
tion is  that  by  legislation  we  have  conferred  large  quantities  of  land  upon  railroad 
companies;  that  they  have  monopolized  these  lands  and  excluded  settlements  which 
would  otherwise  have  been  made  upon  them  by  holding  the  land  at  high  prices;  that 
what  they  have  done  is  hostile  to  the  natural  rights  of  man ;  that  this  legislation  is 
80  vicious  that  we  ought  to  repeal  it ;  and  that  if  they  Cthe  railroad  compauies)  have 
acquired  any  rights  under  it  they  ought  to  be  more  specifically  defined.  On  the  other 
hand,  if  this  legislation  had  not  been  passed,  and  this  land  conferred  as  it  was,  w© 
should  still  have  had  this  vast  amount  of  laud  tied  up  in  its  unimproved  and  com- 
paratively worthless  state,  as  it  was  before.    What  would  you  do  in  that  case  ? 

Mr.  Coffin.  There  is  another  side  to  the  question  as  you  have  stated  it.  There  is  a 
vast  amount  of  land  in  this  country,  which,  if  those  railroads  had  not  been  constructed, 
would  not  have  been  settled  to-day.  Take  the  Northern  Pacific,  for  instance.  I  was 
one  of  a  pai'ty  who  traversed  the  line  of  that  road  before  a  shovelful  of  earth  had  beeu 
thrown  up.  At  that  time  there  were  not  fifty  individuals  to  be  found  along  the  whole 
proposed  route,  and  the  land  was  in  exactly  the  condition  in  which  nature  left  it. 
The  men  who  built  that  road  have  increased  the  value  of  that  land  to  the  government 
to  $2.50  jicr  acre,  and  the  government  has  received,  I  think,  from  the  laud  offices  along 
the  line  of  that  road  nearly  three  millions  of  dqllars.  It  was  utterly  worthless  prior 
to  the  time  when  the  projectors  of  that  road,  by  their  own  individual  enterprise  and 
the  use  of  their  money,  carried  it  forward  to  its  present  stage  of  completion.  Th& 
question  presents  itself  to  us  whether  these  men  who  are  regarded  to-day  as  monopo- 
lists and  land-grabbers  are  not  really  benefactors.  They  have  given  value  to  the  laud  *,. 
they  have  given  homes  to  more  than  fifty  thousand  people  who  live  along  the  line  of 
that  road  to-day  ;  and  they  sent  over  to  Europe  during  the  past  year  over  five  million 
bushels  of  grain  which  would  not  have  been  produced  but  for  the  enterprise  of  the 
men  who  built  the  road.  They  have  lost  their  capital,  while  the  public  has  been 
greatly  benefited.  They  are  denounced  as  laud-grabbers,  whereas  in  fact  they  have 
opened  a  vast  section  to  settlement  and  added  millions  to  the  national  wealth.  In- 
stead of  excluding  settlements  they  have  invited  settlers.  It  is  not  true  that  they 
hold  lands  at  high  rates.  Sales  of  the  land-grant  roads  average  between  four  aud  five 
dollars  per  acre,  which  certainly  is  not  a  high  rate. 

The  Chairman.  Yes ;  that  is  the  argument  of  the  men  who  have  bnilt  up  some  of 
our  great  public  works,  and  is  applied  with  reference  to  the  operation  of  the  tarifi". 
We  are  met  on  the  other  side  by  crowds  of  people  who  say  to  us  that  "  With  all  your 
protectiou,  all  your  land  grants,  we  are  in  a  wretched  plight;  before  you  did  this 
everybody  was  comfortable,  now  we  are  sufl'ering  ;  you  do  not  give  us  any  consolation 
by  telling  us  that  somebody  else  is  better  off  than  he  ought  to  be."  What  are  you 
going  to  do  in  the  case  of  those  people  ? 

Mr.  Coffin.  I  do  not  think  that  I  will  take  up  the  questions  of  tariff  and  free  trade, 
but  I  would  say  to  these  people  that  they  are  not  any  worse  otlthau  they  have  been  at 
other  periods  of  commercial  depression  ;  that  such  periods  will  occur  in  the  future  as 
they  have  in  the  past;  that  they  are  incident  to  civilization;  that  legislative  action 
never  will  be  able  to  wholly  prevent  their  occurrence  ;  that  the  legislative  action  that 
they  ask  for  would  give  no  permanent  relief. 

There  are  two  or  three  points  to  which  I  have  not  alluded,  but  I  will  do  so  now  as 
they  touch  upon  the  point  which  you  have  just  suggested.  I  refer  to  disturbing  ele- 
ments. The  production  of  gold  and  silver  in  this  country  since  1849  amounts  to  $4,500,- 
000,000.     That  has  been  one  disturbing  element. 

The  Ciiair.man.  Do  you  mean  as  a  benefit  or  an  injury  ? 

Mr.  Coffin.  I  am  not  prepared  to  make  any  remark  upon  that,  oifly  that  it  has  been 
a  disturbing  element. 


26 

Tiic  CiiAir.MAX.  Yon  call  it  a  ''(ILsturbing  elemeut,"  but  I  ask  you  has  the  eiiect  of 
its  disturbance  been  for  good  or  for  evil  ? 

Mr.  Coi'KiN.  It  has  disturbed  values;  it  has  had  both  a  beneficial  and  an  injurious 
eftVct  upon  them. 

The  Chairman'.  Its  effect  would  be  to  enhance  values,  would  it  not  ? 

Mr.  C'oi  I'lx.  Yes,  sir. 

'Mic  Chairman.  Yet  you  have  been  endeavoring  to  prove  to  us  all  along  that  values 
are  falling  otl'l' 

Mr.  Coii'ix.  Not  quite,  sir.  Certain  particular  values  have  fallen  oil',  because  the 
cost  of  ])roduction  has  diminished,  or  because  certain  things  have  gone  out  of  use. 
But  wealth  has  accumulated.  I^abor  has  a  higher  value  aiid  will  bring  more  comforts 
than  a  hundred  years  ago.  But  I  have  not  yet  shown  the  applicability  of  this  point  in 
connection  with  my  previous  argument.  I  was  going  to remarkthatwheni  visitedlndia 
a  few  years  ago,  I  found  that  the  cost  of  living  was  greater  than  it  had  been  ;  and  it  is 
greater  to-day  than  then.  The  same  is  true  of  China.  Then  the  next  consideration 
is  that  this  great  increase  of  the  precious  metals  has  been  productive  of  speculation. 
The  speculation  in  mining  stocks  which  is  going  on  to-day,  on  the  Pacific  coast,  is  the 
«ause  of  a  great  deal  of  distress.  The  disturbing  element  manifests  itself  especially 
in  that  direction. 

The  Suez  Canal  is  another  disturbing  element.  Free  labor  is  another.  The  amount 
of  capital  invested  in  the  South  before  the  Avar  for  raising  one  hundred  bales  of  cotton 
was  as  great  as  that  which  is  to-day  invested  for  the  raising  of  one  thousand  bales. 

Tlie  Chairman.  There  never  was  in  reality  any  capital  in  the  slave  ;  the  war  left 
the  laborer  in  the  Sonth  just  where  he  was,  and  his  master  who  thought  that  he  had 
capital  in  his  slave,  found  that  he  had  never  had  any  capital. 

Mr.  Coffin.  Then  the  petroleum  product  was  another  disturbing  element.  These 
brought  on  inflation.  The  war  and  the  issue  of  paper  money  also  came  in  as  disturb- 
ing elements.  Now,  it  is  not  probable  that  these  same  elements  or  anything  like  them 
will  come  in  to  disturb  us  in  our  immediate  future.  Therefore,  I  say  that  I  look  for  a 
Temarkable  degree  of  prosperity  in  this  country.  I  do  not  see  how  it  is  possible  for 
the  country  the  next  tweuty-five  or  fifty  years  to  be  disturbed  by  any  causes  such  as 
those  I  have  enumerated. 

The  Chairman.  Yon  think,  then,  that  in  a  normal  condition  of  things  the  distribution 
•of  labor  and  capital  becomes  well  settled  and  will  be  harmoniously  adjusted;  that  in 
the  near  future  everything  will  go  on  smoothly  and  in  proper  relation,  the  one  to  thf 
other,  this  being  what  you  call  a  prosiJerous  condition  of  the  community  ? 

Mr.  Coffin.  Yes,  sir. 

The  Chairman.  And  that  when  a  disturbing  element  enters  in  dislocation  ensues, 
which  while  it  makes  some  people  rich  makes  others  poor  1 

Mr.  Coffin.  That  is  the  inevitable  result. 

The  Chairman.  Could  not  legislation  contribute  greatly  to  remove  these  disturbing 
causes  ? 

Mr.  Coffin.  I  think  so. 

The  Chairman.  Could  not  legislation  contribute  to  prevent  these  disturbing  causes  ? 

Mr.  Coffin.  I  think  not  to  prevent  them. 

The  Chairman.  I  admit  that  legislation  cannot  wholly  prevent  them,  but  can  it  not 
accomplish  that  object  in  some  degree? 

Mr.  Coffin.  Unquestionably  ;  but  it  is  a  question  which  requires  the  highest  states- 
manship. I  do  not  think  that  commercial  distress  in  the  future  will  be  avoided  by  the 
adoption  of  any  of  the  theories  or  plans  that  have  been  presented  to  this  committee, 
80  far  as  I  understand  them. 

The  Chairman.  Onepointof  your  testimony  has  been  the  proof  that  there  has  been  an 
enormous  increase  in  the  i)roductive  power  of  the  world  within  the  last  century  ;  and 
you  have  .shown  it  to  be  something  so  vast  as  to  be  simply  fabulous.  The  world  has 
been  living  after  its  fashion,  and,  as  you  have  shown,  has  been  growing  in  population 
at  a  moderate  pace,  while  the  increase  of  production  has  been  enormous  and  very 
much  out  of  proportion  to  .the  increase  of  population.  What  do  you  suppose  has  be- 
come of  all  this  vast  increase  in  the  material  wealth  of  the  world — who  has  got  it, 
where  has  it  gone  '! 

Mr.  Coffin.  Much  has  been  destroyed.  It  has  been  more  widely  difi'used ;  but  allowrae 
to  state  some  of  the  questions  that  arise  in  the  course  of  industrial  progress,  and  tend  to 
and  relate  to  increase  of  production  for  each  day's  labor.  As  regards  the  man  there  are 
four  kinds  of  progress.  He  may  accomplish  more  in  a  daj-^  than  formerly,  because  he 
has  become  intrinsically  a  more  capable  man  ;  more  intelligent  in  the  use  of  his  brains; 
more  rapid  in  the  use  of  his  hands,  making  no  false  motionsandcausingevery  stroke  to 
tell ;  or  more  industrious.  Or  he  may  accomplish  more  because  the  material  conditions 
under  which  he  ^orks  make  his  labor  more  productive ;  (.  e.,  many  men  are  brought 
together  under  one  head;  they  are  better  organized;  their  work  is  laid  out  for  them, 
so  that  no  time  is  lost;  they  become  an  organized  army  instead  of  an  undisciplined 
inob.     In  the  third  place  the  material  he  works  upon  or  the  tools  he  works  with  may 


27 

be  so  improved  thiit  he  can  accomplisli  more  in  a  day  ;  and  these  tools  may  he  hand- 
tools,  as  tlie  i)lane,  the  saw,  tlie  center  l)ir,  the  steel  shovel,  or  hoe,  or  pitchfork,  or 
scythe,  or  cradle,  or  plow,  as  coiripared  with  the  rnde stone  implements  and  the crookeil 
stick  of  the  primitive  man  ;  or,  fourth,  they  may  he  machine  tools  or  machines,  hroadly 
(thoujfh  not  for  all  ]>urposes  precisely)  distingnished  from  tools  by  the  fact  that  tho 
power,  instead  of  l)ein<;'  furnished  by  the  hand  that  ynides,  is  sn])]»lied  from  some  other 
source,  which  nnvy  be  a  treadle  or  crank,  and  may  be  a  eteam-enyine  or  water-wheel, 
(/i.  (/.,  the  old  liiacksmith  gave  power  to  his  hammer  by  his  arm  and  directed  his  arm 
by  his  will.  It  is  hardly  a  tignre  of  speech  to  say  of  the  Nasmyth  steam-hammer  that 
the  boiler  sn))])lies  tiie  ])owcr  and  the  haml  of  the  engineer,  raised  one  stej)  in  the 
scale,  becomes  itself  the  intelligeiicc  which  controls.)  The  popular  mind  makes  a  dis- 
tinction between  those  im))rovomi>nts  of  the  three  first  kinds,  which  better  utilize  the 
muscnlar  force  of  man,  ami  those  im]>rovements  of  the  fourth  kind  (including  discov- 
eries in  chemistry  and  jthysics),  by  which  tlie  forces  of  nature  are  utilized.  But  for 
the  purposes  of  this  in(|uiry  tin;  distinction  cannot  be  made,  because  greater  intelligence, 
more  skillful  organizations  of  labor,  and  better  tools  are  the  result  of  or  form  i)art  of 
the  mental  progress  of  civilization  as  much  as  the  invention  of  machinery  does;  and 
it  is  jtrobable  that  their  results  in  greater  product  from  a  day's  labor  have  been  larger 
than  the  results  from  the  use  of  machinery  in  the  modern  sense  of  the  word.  And  al- 
though the  phrase  "labor-saving"  is  popularly  applied  to  machinery  alone  it  belongs 
equally  to  all  four  lines  of  progress.  If  the  welfare  of  the  community  requires  that 
all  progress  shall  be  stopped  which  will  enable  the  worker  to  produce  more  to-nn)rrow 
than  he  did  yesterday,  or  enable  a  given  product  to  be  obtained  by  less  labor,  then  prog- 
ress not  only  on  the  fourth  line,  but  equally  on  all  must  l>e  forbidden.  Civilization 
would  not  do  this  if  it  could,  for  it  will  not  destroy  itself;  with  man  to  stop  is  to  rust, 
to  recede.  It  could  not  if  it  would,  for  the  mind  of  society  cannot  tie  itself  up  in  in- 
action ;  and  if  it  once  did  it,  it  could  not  long  stay  in  fetters  of  which  itself  kept  the 
key.  Since  this  tendency  certainly  cannot  be  (and  I  am  sure  that  it  ought  not  to  be) 
repressed,  let  us  see  what  questions  arise  in  its  progress. 

During  the  last  thousand  years  the  production  in  the  industrial  arts  in  civilized 
countries  lias  increased  vastly  faster  than  the  population.  The  comforts  and  con- 
veniences of  life  have  vastly  increased.  In  other  words,  each  household  has  more  and 
better  material  things  to  use  and  to  consume  than  it  had  formerly;  the  increase  in 
consumption  has  kept  pace  with  the  increase  of  ])roduction.  I  mean  taking  it  in  the 
long  run.  This  is  quite  ditiVrent  from  the  (luestion  of  increase  of  wealth.  The  large 
manufacturer  of  to  day  may  not  grow  rich — nniy  not  accumulate — any  faster  than 
the  master  workman  of  five  hundred  years  ago.  The  laborer,  at  the  end  of  his  career 
to-day  may  have  laid  up  nothing,  but  it  is  a  good  f^eal  that  during  his  life  he  has  lived 
iu  a  wooden  house  with  a  carpet  and  decent  furniture  produced  by  the  manufacturer 
instead  of  in  a  hovel  with  a  dirt  Hoor  and  logs  to  sit  on.  This  iucn^ased  production  he 
has  consumed.  He  has  not  destroyed  it  as  a  tire  destroys  ;  he  has  worn  it  out  in  enjoy- 
ing it,  and  this  is  the  fate  of  most  things  that  are  produced  for  the  use  of  man.  In- 
creased consumption  and  production  is  therefore  intrinsically  a  public  benefit,  even 
where  the  producer  grows  no  richer.  This  is  seldom  denied.  The  outcry  sometimes 
made  against  increased  production  refers  to  a  production  in  excess  of  the  consumption. 
This  trouble  does  not  come  (necessarily)  because  production  grows,  but  because  con- 
sumption does  not;  and  an  increa.se  in  the  latter  is  as  legitimate  a  way  of  meeting  the 
diiificulty  as  a  diminution  of  the  former;  more  legitimate  and  more  natural  because  it 
is  iu  the  direction  of  the  invaiiable  and  irresistible  progress  of  mankiml  and  not  in 
opposition  to  it ;  and  improvements  in  society  must  take  place  along  a  natural  line  of 
progress  and  not  contrary  to  the  logic  of  events. 

At  any  given  time  there  are  two  methods  of  increasing  production.  One  is  to  du- 
plicate the  ])roducing  establishments,  making  no  change  in  their  character;  they  will 
nuiuufacture  more,  but  at  the  same  cost  per  piece.  The  other  is,  by  some  of  the  means 
already  described  to  increase  the  production  from  a  given  number  of  operatives.  The 
first  has  the  apparent  advantage  of  employing  more  labor,  but  is  only  an  apparent 
advantage,  for  if  the  increase  exceeds  the  natural  growth  of  population  and  wealth, 
(.  c,  if  it  increases  faster  than  the  number-  and  means  of  the  consumers,  there  will  be 
failures,  stoppages,  and  hands  thrown  out  of  employment.  Historically  this  has  been 
the  case  at  the  periods  of  great  industrial  depression.  The  high  price  of  iron  and  con- 
sequent prohts  eight  years  ago  led  many  men  independently  to  put  up  new  works,  and 
-when  one  found  himself  just  ready  to  supply  the  unsatisfied  demand,  he  discovered  a 
dozen  others  equally  ready,  and  this  meant  disaster  for  all,  and  the  operatives  just 
drawn  to  this  industry  were  thrown  out  of  work.  And  so  with  other  branches.  So 
with  railroads.  The  impetus  of  apparent  or  real  great  demand  showing  itself  iu  great 
profits  carried  the  pendulum  too  far. 

The  other  method  is  to  increase  the  production  of  an  establishment  of  a  given  size  and 
given  number  of  operatives  by  improvements  in  organization  or  machinery.  This 
means  larger  production  at  the  same  cost  for  the  total  and  a  smaller  cost  per  piece,  /.  c, 
it  means  a  cheaper  product.    No^v  a  cheaper  product  always  means  a  larger  cousump- 


28 

tioti ;  partly  because  people  will  .spend  at  Ici.'wt  as  iniicli  as  they  can  aliord,  and  if 
thinj^s  are  cheaper  will  buy  more  of  the  same  kind,  or  with  the  surplus  money  will 
buy  other  thing's;  it  is  not  desire  nor  inability  to  liud  soniethiu;^  desired  which  limits 
expenditure  with  mankind,  but  want  of  means.  More  than  this,  the  cheaper  a  thing 
becomes  the  lar<;er  the  circle  of  ])ossible  and  therefore  certain  pnrcha.sers  and  cou- 
sumcrs,  and  wants  grow  by  indulg<*nce.  The  tendency  of  this  kind  of  increase  in  pro- 
duction tlieit'fore  is,  of  itself,  to  increase  the  consumption  which  will  support  it  and 
■will  maintain  it.  The  improvements  wliicii  lead  to  this  increa«ie  do  not,  either  in 
theory  or  in  fact  (the  illustrations  have  been  given  at  length  already),  tend  to  dimin- 
ish the  total  cost  of  production,  but  only  the  cost  per  piece.  The  cost  of  transi>orta- 
tion  recpiired  by  a  population  of  l()(),(l()()souls  is  to-day  tenfold  what  it  was  100  years  ago. 
The  railroad  from  New  York  to  Washington  costs  for  its  construction  and  for  its  daily 
operation  many  times  as  nnich  as  tin;  stage-team  of  fifty  years  since  But  it  will  do 
much  more  work,  ('.  v.,  is  so  much  more  productive,  that  the  cost  of  each  passenger  or 
ton  of  freight  hauled  one  mile  has  amazingly  diminished.  Almost  every  railroad 
that  is  started  occupies  a  field  where  the  existing  work  of  transportation  would  not 
pay  the  increased  expense  of  the  new  method,  but  it  is  projected  upon  the  theory  that 
the  diminished  cost  per  piece,  so  to  speak,  will  increase  the  demand  so  as  not  only  to 
com])ensate  for  that  diminution  in  cost,  but  to  far  increase  it ;  will  lead  the  inhabitants 
not  ouly  to  sj)end  as  much  but  a  great  deal  more  in  transportation  than  before. 

ISo  much  for  the  effect  of  im])rovements  in  existing  industries.  Kut  besides  that  the 
same  disposition  to  invent  and  improve  leads  to  new  industries.  Sometimes  strictly 
new  industries,  as  in  the  ca,so  of  printing,  vulcanized  rubber,  photography,  telegraphy, 
gas-making,  steam  transportation,  and  a  host  of  other  things;  sometimes  virtually 
new  industries  are  made  commercially  practicable  by  a  reduction  in  cost  of  some  neces- 
sary thing  or  process.  Many  branches  of  trade  and  business  to-day  would  be  impos- 
sible without  steam  transportation  and  telegraphs.  The  habits  and  powers  of  business 
men  have  been  greatly  modified  by  the  sleeping-car.  The  IJessemer  process  for  making 
steel  not  only  employs,  certainly  in  this  country,  far  more  men  than  the  old  process, 
but  it  has  made  possible  manj''  things  which  the  old  process  forbade  from  the  high  cost. 
The  steel  rails  have  cheapened  transportation.  And  the  engineers  say  that  a  little 
more  rednctitm  in  the  cost  of  production  will  make  it  available  for  ship-building. 

The  fallacy  of  those  w'ho  object  to  improvements  in  labor-saving  machinery  and 
processes  lies  in  the  false  assumption  that  as  many  articles  would  be  made  by  the  old 
and  expensive  method  as  by  the  new  and  cheap  one.  This  is  absolutely  untrue  in 
theorj'  and  in  fact. 

One  other  ])<)int.  The  concentration  of  mannfacturing  operatives  in  large  towns 
is  not  the  result  of  the  invention  of  power-driven  machinery,  but  long  preceded  it. 
Five  hnndred  years  ago  Florence  was  a  city  of  artisans.  In  Queen  Elizabeth's  time 
certain  industries  were  concentrated  in  certain  localities.  Forty  years  ago,  when 
hosiery  was  made  on  hand  frames  in  the  workmen's  homes,  it  came  from  a  few  towns. 
Philadelphia  was  long  full  of  hand  looms  worked  at  home.  On  the  other  hand.  New 
England  was  dotted  all  over  with  little  industries  wherever  a  village  waterfall  fur- 
nished power.  The  moment  industry  got  beyond  the  supply  of  a  purely  local  demand, 
such  as  supports  the  village  blacksmith,  it  became  concentrated  in  large  centers,  where 
one  master  employed  many  journeymen  or  piece-workers,  and  the  product  passed 
through  the  hands  of  the  merchant  and  the  avenues  of  commerce  Ijefore  it  reached 
the  consumer.  The  distinction  between  the  village  industry,  where  the  man  was  half 
artisan,  half  agriculturist,  and  could  support  himself  tilling  the  soil  when  his  trade 
was  dull,  and  the  urban  life  wh -re  the  man  must  iind  work  in  his  tra  le  or  suiter,  pre- 
ceded the  use  of  power-driven  machinery.  This,  however,  increased  the  concentra- 
tion of  operatives  and  of  production  in  a  particular  locality.  It  also  gave  rise  to  the 
factory  system,  properly  so-called,  /.  e.,  the  collection  of  the  work-people  in  one  build- 
ing, instead  of  having  them  work  at  home  on  piece-work;  but  the  etl'ects  of  that  sys- 
tem belong  to  a  diflferent  inquiry. 

Now  the  moment  that  production  in  one  town  exceeded  the  consumption  of  that 
town,  agencies  for  its  distribution  must  be  set  up.  When  increased  production  calls 
for  or  is  intended  to  lead  to  increased  consumption,  there  must  be  means  for  taking 
the  products  from  the  factory  and  ottering  them  for  sale  to  the  ultimate  consumer. 
The  merchant  and  the  carrier  must  come  in.  Commerce  must  be  equal  to  the-  increased 
work  pur  upon  it,  for  if  it  is  not,  the  whole  fabric  breaks  down  and  the  j)roduct  is  not 
consumed.  Whether  the  merchant  has  grown  in  his  ability  to  do  this  as  much  as  the 
manufacturer  has  improved  in  his  art,  and  what  means  should  be  taken  to  improve 
him,  are  foreign  to  this  inquiry  ;  the  work  of  the  mechanic  and  the  manufacturer  stops 
with  the  producti<m,  but  it  is  a  striking  comujentary  on  the  inefficiency  of  the  mer- 
chants of  this  country  that  in  many  trades  the  manufacturers  have  been  forced  to  be- 
come their  own  distributors  to  the  local  retail  stores. 

The  sntfering  among  the  manufacturing  population  of  England  during  the  thirty 
years  which  followed  the  introduction  of  power-driven  machinery,  say  from  1785  to 
lt*15,  was  due  largely  to  the  failure  of  the  merchants  to  reach  consumers  with  the 


29 

protluft  of  the  faclorios.  Consider  tlio  onornious  increase  of  goods  to  be  distributed; 
canals  were  not :  railroads  did  not  come  till  I'^'M) ;  steam  ocean  navigation  ten  or  lifteeii 
years  later.  Commerce  was  paraly/ed  by  the  material  obstacles  of  blockades,  orders 
in  council,  Herliu  decrees;  still  more  perhaps  by  the  wars  or  rumors  of  wars  which, 
during  nearly  all  that  period,  checked  the  business  of  interchanging  commodities,  while 
<a  curious  system  of  legislation  did  its  best  to  picvent  a  supply  of  food  from  reaching 
those  workmen  whose  occupations  or  mod('  of  life  made  it  imi)()ssible  for  them  to  till 
the  soil.  But  as  these  obstacles  began  to  disapi)ear,  England,  with  a  vastly  increasing 
])rodnction,  entered  upon  a  career  of  unexampled  prosperity,  because  her  merchants 
were  ecjual  to  her  manufacturers. 

The  factory  system,  properly  so-called — that  is,  the  system  of  aggregating  large  num- 
bers of  operatives  in  one  building  uniler  one  control — has  unquestionably  in  England 
at  least  re(iuired  legislation  to  enable  or  compel  the  masters  and  tin?  workmen  to  con- 
form to  what  the  welfare  of  society  under  this  system  re(|uired.  Hut  it  is  one  of  its 
chief  merits  that  it  britigs  the  workmen  under  such  organization  that  public  opinion 
anfl  legislators  can  be  informed  about  their  conditions  and  can  act  upon  them  and  im- 
prove them.  Reforms  in  ventilation,  hours  of  work,  lal>or,  and  schooling  of  children, 
which  could  not  be  enforced  against  ojieratives  doing  piece-work  at  home,  can  be  en- 
forced in  a  factory,  and  the  necessary  discipline  of  a  large  establishment  requires  more 
regular  habits  of  the  workman. 

Let  me  add  one  more  remark  about  the  factory  system.  It  enables  less  skillful  labor 
to  be  used  under  more  intelligent  oversight.  The  practised  hand  is  less  important 
than  the  quick  brain.  The  number  of  foremen  in  proportion  to  the  number  of  oper- 
atives constantly  increases.  The  financial  view  of  education  is  beginning  to  be  felt. 
And  it  is  not  the  apprentice  system  but  the  technical  schools  that  will  furnish  the 
supply  of  overlookers.     I  think  I  see  an  improving  tendency  in  this  direction. 

The  Chairman.  Yon  think  that  the  great  mass  of  mankind  is  much  better  off  now 
than  they  were,  and  that  that  is  the  way  in  which  the  increased  production  has  been 
iised  up,  in  making  mankind  more  comfortable,  prosi)erous,  and  hajipj'  ? 
Mr.  Coffin.  Yes,  sir. 

The  Chairman.  Do  you  think  that  if  the  ownership  of  very  large  masses  of  this 
increased  wealth  was  in  a  few  hands,  that  fact  would  in  any  degree  invalidate  the 
proDosition  which  you  now  lav  down  that  the  great  mass  have  been  made  more  com- 
fortable ? 

Mr.  Coffin.  I  think  that  it  would. 

The  Chairman.  Do  you  think  that  if  this  great  increase  of  wealth  were  nominally 
owned  by  one  single  individual — a  great  king  or  emperor,  or  call  him  by  whatever 
name  you  like — if  he  had  the  ownership  of  the  whole  of  it,  it  would  materially  affect 
the  comfort  and  enjoyment  which  the  great  mass  of  the  people  derive  from  it  ? 
Mr.  Coffin.  I  think  it  would  diminish  it  very  much. 
The  Chairman.  What  could  he  do  with  it  ? 

Mr.  Coffin.  I  do  not  know  what  he  could  do  with  it,  but  I  do  not  think  that  his 
monopoly  of  it  could  contribute  to  the  universal  happiness  of  free  beings.  All  his- 
tory shows  that  it  could  not.  In  a  free  society  the  laws  imposing  restraint  should  be 
as  few  as  possible  consistent  with  the  general  welfare  of  men.  The  question  which 
you  have  put  is  an  abstract  question,  and  it  is  not  likely  to  call  for  any  practical  solu- 
tion in  this  country. 

The  Chairman.  Would  you  restrain  men  in  the  acquisition  of  property. 
Mr.  Coffin.  No,  vsir. 

The  Chairman.  Then  if  you  do  not  restrain  the  acquisition  of  property,  would  you 
<io  anything  to  prevent  one  man  from  acquiring  a  very  large  proportion  of  it,  as  many 
men  have  done  ? 
Mr.  Coffin.  No,  sir. 

The  Chairman.  But  you  think  it  is  injurious  to  have  that  condition  of  things  exist- 
ing ? 

Mr.  Coffin.  I  think  that,  in  consequence  of  it,  the  condition  of  society  would  not 
be  so  good  as  if  it  were  very  widely  diffused. 

The  Chairman.  If  it  is  bad  for  society,  why  would  you  not  restrain  it  ? 
Mr.  Coffin.  Because  I  do  not  think  it  would  be  best  for  society  to  interfere. 
The  Chairman.  Is  not  society  formed  for  that  very  object  ?     Is  it  not  declared  in 
the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  that  the  government  is  formed  in  order  to  "  pro- 
mote the  general  welfare,"  «fcc.  ? 

Mr.  Coffin.  Ours  being  a  government  of  the  people,  the  people  can  pass  what  laws 
they  please  to  promote  the  general  welfare;  but  it  is  manifest  that  the  general  welfare 
can  only  be  promoted  by  wise  laws.  For  one,  I  do  not  think  such  a  law  would  be 
wise,  neither  that  it  would  commend  itself  to  the  general  judgment. 

The  Chairman.  There  is  a  point  which  I  would  recommend  some  intelligent  man 
like  yourself  to  consider,  viz:  whether,  after  all,  it  is  not  the  function  of  society  to 
introduce  limitations  upon  the  acquisition  of  wealth.  There  is  no  process  by  which 
any  one  man  could  have  contributed  to  society  one  hundred  millions  of  dollars,  and  yet 


30 

w»'  liiivo  iiiiinbcrsof  men  wlio  own  tliat  innount of  vuljio.  In  a  case  such  as  that,  wlieuj 
a  man  lias  obtained  a  great  deal  t)f  wealth,  and  never  did  aiiytbiug  to  obtaiu  it,  will 
you  do  anything  to  pievent  it? 

Mr.  Coi'i'iN.  Your  ([iiestion  opens  a  very  broad  licdd.  It  is  a  question  which  con- 
fronts England  to-day  ;  whether  with  her  acreage  under  cultivation  diminishing  from 
year  to  year,  the  Duke  of  Devonshire  and  others  of  the  landed  aristocracy  shall  be 
allowed  to  go  on  and  keep  their  game  picsi-rves.  liehind  that  (juestion  lies  another, 
as  to  what  shall  be  the  limit  of  ownership  in  land  ;  and  behind  that  still  another 
which  tlie  communist  raises,  whether  a  man  shall  have  any  individual  ownership  in 
land,  or  in  anything  else?  When  our  lathers  framed  the  Constitution  they  excluded 
primogeniture,  rightly  seeing  that  with  such  exclusion  there  could  be  no  long-contin- 
ued inheritance  of  large  areas  of  land.  As  a  practical  question  I  do  not  think  that  we 
shall  be  called  upon  to  grapple  with  it  in  this  country. 

The  CiiAiKMAX.  In  France  you  are  aware  they  overturned  the  whole  lamled  system 
by  revolution.  Suppose  that  Mr.  V^anderbilt  and  other  rich  men  like  him  would  club 
together  and  make  themselves  proprietors  of  the  State  of  New  Jersey.  Do  you  think 
that  society  would  be  justified  in  preventing  them  ? 

Mr.  COKi'iN.  Your  question  takes  us  back  to  the  beginning  of  things,  and  the  first 
point  to  settle  is  the  original  ownership.  The  first  title-deed  is  found  recorded  Gen- 
esis, chapter  1,  verse  28,  direct  from  the  Almighty  :  "  lie  fruitful,  and  multiply,  and  re- 
plenish the  earth,  and  subdue  it."  Subjugation  is  the  title  to  ownership.  Labor  upon 
the  land  is  the  only  ground  of  ownership.  To  begin  with,  every  man  owns  himself 
and  all  that  he  produces  by  the  exertion  of  his  powers.  It  is  the  fundamental  condi- 
tion of  existence.  When  he  employs  his  power  upon  any  material  substance  all  that 
he  adds  to  it  is  his.  It  is  a  natural  right  Which  society  cannot  interfere  with.  The 
earth  was  made  for  man  ;  from  it  he  obtains  subsistence  just  in  i)roportion  as  he  em- 
ploys his  powers.  This  whole  presentation  that  I  have  given  is  based  on  the  exceed- 
ing richness  of  nature.  Land  in  its  natural  state  does  not  supply  man's  wants.  It 
must  be  "subdued."  True,  in  the  tropics  it  produces  food-bearing  trees,  and  it  provides 
sustenance  for  game,  but  uothiug  more.  When  our  fathers  came  to  this  country  they 
found  it  a  wilderness  filled  with  game,  and  Indians  that  existed  by  living  on  the  game. 
Did  the  Indian  own  the  land  ?  He  was  iu  possession,  but  was  his  possessory  title 
valid  f  Certainly  not,  for  he  had  done  nothing  to  "subdue"  the  land  except  here  and 
there  to  scratch  the  soil.  In  no  sense  had  he  subdued  it.  Until  labor  has  been  applied 
to  land  it  is  utterly  useless  to  the  human  race.  There  are  millions  of  acres  of  unoc- 
cupied land,  rich  and  fertile,  in  this  country  to-day  capable  of  producing  twenty  to 
thirty  bushels  of  wheat  to  the  acre  in  the  possession  of  the  government,  which  is  only 
another  term  for  the  people;  and  the  government,  recognizing  the  fundataental  law 
that  labor  upon  laud  is  the  true  and  only  title  to  ownership,  says  to  every  individual 
go  and  occupy  eighty  or  one  hundred  and  sixty  acres  of  that  laud  for  five  years,  and 
you  shall  have  a  title  secured  to  you  and  your  children  forever*.  Or  if  you  will  pay 
$1.25  per  acre  you  shall  have  it.  Labor,  occupancy,  gives  the  right  of  ownership.  Gov- 
ernment has  not  said  that  a  man  shall  not  purchase  more,  only  that  he  shall  not  oc- 
cupy more  without  paying  for  it.  Shall  he  be  limited  in  his  acreage  by  purchase  ?  If 
so,  what  shall  be  the  limit  ?  Shall  it  be  one  hundred  and  sixty  acres  or  one  acre,  or  a 
quarter  of  an  acre  ?  'i'he  right. to  limit  at  all  implies  the  right  to  limit  to  a  square  rod 
or  less. 

That  brings  us  to  the  demand  of  one  class  of  socialists  who  maintain  that  there  shall 
be  no  individual  ownership  iu  land,  a  question  that  is  hardly  worth  while  for  me  to 
enter  upon  in  this  connection  ;  which  so  far  as  the  subject-matter  I  had  iu  view  at  the 
outset  can  only  be  speculative. 

I  think  it  is  clear  that  under  our  industrial  progress  wealth  doos  not  accumu- 
late in  a  few  hands,  as  it  did  undei  the  Roman  Empire,  or  in  the  middle  ages,  or  be- 
fore Arkwright  and  Watt  began  to  use  the  forces  of  nature  for  the  beuetit  of  man. 
There  certainly  is  more  chfince  for  change  iu  condition  now  for  the  mass  of  the  people 
than  there  has  been  at  any  former  period  of  the  world's  history.  We  have  only  to 
couqiaie  the  past  with  the  present  to  find  unmistakable  evidence  on  that  point.  It  is 
easier  for  men  now  to  change  their  lot  m  life  than  in  any  age.  Why?  I  think  I  have 
shown  conclusively  that  it  is  because  we  are  using  the  forces  of  nature  instend  of  our 
own  muscles.  It  is  incumbent  upon  those  who  say  that  machinery  throws  men  out  of 
employment  to  show  the  contraiy. 

Whenever  I  survey  the  past  and  contrast  it  with  the  present;  whenever  I  recall  the 
social  condition  of  former  times;  the  want,  the  siiualor,  the  hmited  employments,  the 
nnchangeableuess  of  situation,  the  few  opportunities  for  advancement,  in  contrast 
wiih  the  present  enjoyments,  the  diffused  wealth,  the  varied  occupations,  the  progress 
ot  the  people,  I  can  arrive  at  only  one  conclusion,  that  the  physical,  moial,  and  spirit- 
ual forces  together  are  lifting  us  in  the  scale  of  being  to  a  civilization  immeasurably 
higher  and  nobler  than  the  jiresent. 

Allow  mc,  Mr.  Chairman,  in  conclusion,  to  express  my  thanks  to  the  committee  for 
their  kind  consideration. 


Ur,S(,llllUHNHl(,l()NAlim[;Al|Vl'|]j^^ 


AA   uuui3onw)» 


